1T is published annually by the Historical Association of
S L C 5 t ,s t Southern Florida. Communications should be addressed
f to the Managing Editor of Tequesta, Historical Museum
of Southern Florida, 101 W. Flagler Street, Miami,
Florida 33130. Telephone: (305) 375-1492. The Association does not assume respon-
sibility for statements of facts or opinions made by contributors. (ISSN 0363-3705)

On the Cover: In 1896, close to 400 people crowded onto the second floor of the
Lobby Pool Room to vote to incorporate Miami as a city. The building to the left
is the site of this historical meeting. (HASF 75-25-103)

What an exciting time to assume the editorship of Tequesta.
Miami, the Magic City, is preparing to celebrate the centennial of its
incorporation as a city. Miami and Dade County continue to invite
national, and even international, scrutiny as academics and members
of the media alike attempt to divine from its experiences with waves
of refugees and immigrants the future course of global cities. In the
meantime, increasing numbers of students, along with academicians
and journalists, are probing the area's rich history as never before.
Since its first issue appeared in 1941, Tequesta has been the
beneficiary of much of the research and writing devoted to the his-
tory of the region. With the city's centennial as a backdrop, this, the
fifty-fifth volume of Tequesta, will examine, in a seminal article by
Larry Wiggins, the events of 1895-1896 that led to the creation of
modem Miami. Wiggins is an avocational historian par excellence,
and one known for his relentless research and unselfish assistance to
others involved in the craft. This number of Tequesta also includes
a carefully-researched article on Miami's fearsome yellow fever epi-
demic of 1899 by William Straight, M.D. Dr. Straight has amassed
an enviable record as a medical historian over the past four decades
and he burnishes this reputation with this essay. Like Larry Wiggins,
Leah LaPlant, author of a fascinating study on Charles Torrey Simpson,
is a first-time contributor to Tequesta. A professor at Miami-Dade
Community College's Wolfson Campus, Ms. LaPlant examines the
renown naturalist's lengthy residence in the Miami area and his sig-
nificant impact on his adopted home.
As Arva Parks McCabe, my immediate predecessor as editor,
indicated in the 1993 number of Tequesta, the journal is interested'in
a wide array of topics covering the rich history of south Florida and
the Caribbean, and it invites the novice as well as those with more
experience in the historian's craft, to submit articles for consider-
ation. I will be happy, as Arva was, to work with anyone who has
an idea and the determination to pursue research in primary sources
in quest of new information on the area's history. An accomplished,
energetic advisory board will assist in this quest.

Paul S. George
Tequesta Editor

4 TEQUESTA

- .- .l~jri

The early pioneers who helped establish Miami: William and Mary Brickell
(HASF Stan Cooper Collection) and Julia Tuttle (HASF 1975-25-1). The above
view of Avenue D looks northward, from the south side the the Miami River.
Julia Tuttle owned the land to the right in the picture, which was leased out to
the local businessmen. The tallest building on that side is the Lobby, the site
ofMiami's incorporation in 1896. (HASF x-145-x)

5

The Birth of the City of Miami

by Larry Wiggins

Just over one hundred years ago, in 1895, three stubborn vision-
aries came together to create Miami and, in doing so, open all of
then-pristine South Florida to development. The Tuttle and Brickell
families possessed land. Henry M. Flagler owned a railroad and
possessed the capital to transform the land from a wilderness into a
city. The partnership between them was at times adversarial, the
consequences sometimes disappointing, but the resulting Magic City
would, over the next century, grow into something greater than they
could have ever imagined.
The Brickell family, consisting of William, his wife Mary, and
eight adult children ranging in age from 18 to 38, lived on the south
bank of the mouth of the Miami River where they operated a trading
post and post office. They arrived in 1871 from Cleveland and pur-
chased a vast stretch of land that extended from the banks of the
river south to near today's Coconut Grove. They also owned prop-
erty on the north side of the New River in today's Fort Lauderdale.'
Julia Tuttle and her children, Harry and Fanny, lived across the
river from the Brickells. Tuttle, who came to Miami in 1891 after
purchasing a tract of 640 acres of land on the north bank of the
Miami River, was also from Cleveland. Tuttle's husband, Frederick,
died in 1886, and she decided to move to South Florida due to what
was described as the "delicate health" of her children. Tuttle had
seen the area in 1875, at the age of twenty-six, when she visited her
father, Ephraim Sturtevant, who homesteaded in the area of today's

Larry Wiggins is the Controller for the South Dade News Leader, a news-
paper in Homestead, where he has been employed for 17 years. He gradu-
ated from the University of Miami in 1978. He was chairman of the
Historic Preservation Board of the City of Homestead at the time of and
during the recovery from, Hurricane Andrew.

6 TEQUESTA

Miami Shores. Sturtevant had been a friend of Brickell in Cleveland
until a disagreement brought the friendship to a halt.2
The Miami area, in the years leading up to the railroad's arrival,
was better known as "Biscayne Bay Country." The only overland
transportation to the area was by a hack (or stagecoach) line that ran
from Lantana on the southern end of Lake Worth to Lemon City on
Biscayne Bay. The few published accounts from that period describe
the area as a wilderness that held much promise.3
Lying five miles north of the Miami River, Lemon City could
boast of only fifteen buildings in 1893. However, many homesteaders
had settled on land up to five miles away from the core of the
settlements. One of these buildings was a new hotel that could ac-
commodate twenty-five to thirty guests. Two miles south were sev-
eral people living in Buena Vista. "Cocoanut Grove" (as it was
spelled then) sat ?? miles south of the Miami River; it contained
twenty-eight buildings "of a very neat and tasteful character," two
large stores doing an "immense business," and a hotel run by Charles
and Isabella Peacock. Cutler, eight miles south of Cocoanut Grove,
also contained a few settlers.4
But the jewel on Biscayne Bay was Miami. The site where the
Miami River emptied into the bay was described as the cream of the
property in the area. There was rich, heavy hammock growth, and
to the south, on the Brickell lands, a high, rocky bluff, which was
characterized as "one of the finest building sites in Florida."5 The
Tuttles lived in a large home that had been in use when Fort Dallas
occupied the spot at the time of the Indian wars of the mid-nine-
teenth century. Julia Tuttle repaired and converted the home into one
of the show places in the area.6 It possessed a wide porch on the
second story that provided a sweeping view of the river and the bay.
The bay itself was a favorite resort for wealthy yachtsmen who
came to the area in the winter for fishing and cruising.7
Flagler's biographers debate just when he first planned to ex-
tend his railroad south to Miami and eventually on to Key West.
Perhaps no one but Flagler ever will know, although correspondence
related to this matter dates to the early 1890s. However, the point in
time when the decision actually was made to begin extending the
railroad south from West Palm Beach can be ascertained as Febru-
ary 1895.1
Flagler, who earlier had achieved great wealth in partnership
with John D. Rockefeller in Standard Oil, had been developing the

The Birth of the City of Miami 7

east coast of Florida, beginning in St.
Augustine in 1885, either through new
construction or through the purchase of
existing hotels and railroads, which were
then upgraded. Every few years, Flagler
extended his railroad farther south.
Flagler became associated with the
Florida Coast Line Canal & Transporta-
tion Company (FCLCTC) in 1893 be-
cause of the advantages it held for his
railroad.9 The canal company, chartered
in 1881, had as its objective the con-
struction of a series of canals connect-
ing existing lakes and rivers in order to
provide a navigable inland waterway be- HenryM.Flagler
tween St. Augustine and Lake Worth. (HASF1981-116-2)
This would allow for safe transportation
as many ships were being lost off the Florida coast to dangerous
underwater coral reefs and sudden violent squalls.10
FCLCTC's charter was amended in 1882 to extend the water-
way from Lake Worth to Biscayne Bay and from St. Augustine to
the St. Johns River. The company would dig the canals fifty feet
wide and to a depth of five feet and dredge the existing rivers and
lakes to that depth in order to accommodate steam-powered vessels.
In return for opening the area to agriculture and development, the
company received from the state of Florida a grant of 3,840 acres

of land for each mile of the waterway. The FCLCTC sold this land
to settlers and farmers who, in turn, provided commerce for the canal
which was to operate on a toll system. Thus began the first major
commercial enterprise to link the Miami area with the outside world."
The company was never well capitalized. Sales of the lands
awarded it by the state of Florida for work completed was disap-
pointing. This led to serious financial problems in 1892, at which time
the FCLCTC prevailed upon its competitor, Henry Flagler, for help.
Flagler's railroad then reached only as far south as Daytona Beach,
but he was planning to extend it to Rockledge, eighty miles to the
south. The railroad also operated on a system of receiving state
grants of land for each mile of railway constructed. The canal's
charter had effectively tied up the state land along its proposed route
to Biscayne Bay. The state pledged the canal company all of its land
designated as land to be granted. This state land amounted to every
other section, on a township and range basis, within a six-mile-wide
stretch along the canal's route. Flagler realized that the state was left
with no land to grant to his railroad when it pushed farther south, so
he used his bargaining skills learned during his Standard Oil days to
negotiate a most favorable partnership with the canal company: he
would provide capital in exchange for assuming the company's presi-
dency and his railroad would receive a grant of 1,500 acres of the
canal company's land for each mile of new track. The extension of
the railroad would, in turn, increase the probability that the canal
company could successfully market its remaining lands to potential
settlers. The canal company and railroad also agreed on a plan to
settle and develop some of the lands jointly.'2
Thus, with the assured land available, Flagler pushed his rail-
road farther south, reaching Rockledge in February 1893 and Fort
Pierce in January 1894. In February 1894, Flagler opened the jewel
of his resort hotels, the Royal Poinciana, at Palm Beach."3 It was the
largest wooden structure in the world, containing 1,150 rooms. The
following month Flagler completed the extension of his railroad south-
ward from Fort Pierce to West Palm Beach. In return for this ex-
tension the canal company issued the railroad 102,917 acres in Janu-
ary 1895. These deeds contained land in the Miami area as there
were not sufficient lands owned by the canal company along the
railroad extension between Fort Pierce and West Palm Beach."4
Within weeks of receiving this land Flagler would decide to begin his
extension to Miami.

The Birth of the City of Miami 9

Florida experienced its worst freeze since 1835 on the night of
December 29, 1894. The cold wave, which originated in the Mid-
west, moved down the country so fast that it did not have a chance
to warm up as it headed southward. Nor did it give forecasters
adequate time to notify farmers in Florida of the coming danger.
Temperatures sunk to 14 degrees at Jacksonville, and 18 at Tampa.
West Palm Beach recorded 30 degrees; ice formed one-eighth of an
inch thick in a fountain in front of Palm Beach's Royal Poinciana. At
Titusville, the temperature dipped to 18 degrees, rising only to 34 the
next day and back below freezing the following night. A temperature
of 26 degrees for three hours or more would freeze the juice of an
orange, making it unfit for eating. Florida's famous citrus crop was
lost, as well as the winter vegetable crop in the ground throughout the
state.15
The word from the most southerly region of Florida, a land that
could only be reached by an exhausting two-day trip by stagecoach
over rough roads or by boat over the sometimes dangerous open
water route, was surprisingly different. One farmer in a letter to a
Titusville newspaper said:

Biscayne Bay [area] is not frozen out as yet, as will be shown
by the shipments of tomatoes made this month. Between 200
and 300 crates will be shipped from here tomorrow, the 14th [of
January]. The cold did little damage here. Pineapples are not
hurt as far as can be seen. The leaves on the banana trees are
burnt some, but the fruit is not injured. Irish potatoes, beans
and beets did not suffer from the cold, and we will have a full
crop of tomatoes.'6

All over Florida, farmers, developers and homeseekers looked upon
their barren trees and fields and took note of this "freeze proof"
section of Florida.
As farmers were struggling from the devastating freeze of
December 1895, Florida was hit by an even worse freeze. On the
night of February 7, 1895, the temperature dropped to 18 at Orlando
and Titusville, 22 at Tampa, 20 at Daytona, and 14 at Jacksonville.
The following day the temperature failed to rise above freezing through-
out most of the state. In Jacksonville, the St. Johns River froze a
distance of eight feet from the southern bank and was thick enough

10 TEQUESTA

to support the weight of a man two feet out. Snow fell on Tampa and
Fort Myers.17
This second cold wave, coming just when citrus trees were
putting out new growth and vegetable growers were preparing to
harvest their replanted crops, finished off any of the remaining season's
yield. Where citrus crops had been lost in December, the trees them-
selves were lost in the latter freeze. Farmers were demoralized and
numbed; what they thought could not happen again in ten years had
occurred only six weeks after the first freeze. Homesteaders who
had looked upon Florida as the promised land and had invested years
in their farms were wiped out in two days.18
Again, the reports coming from the areas of New River (Fort
Lauderdale) and Biscayne Bay were difficult to comprehend. The
freeze had not reached the far south end of Florida and again it was
reported "many crates of tomatoes are being shipped to Key West
daily.""19 Two days after the second freeze, Flagler dispatched James
E. Ingraham to investigate the reports from South Florida. Ingraham
headed the railroad's land department, which had the responsibility
for securing land for the railroad, surveying and laying out the new
towns that sprang up on the newly granted railroad lands, and attract-
ing settlers and farmers to these lands. He was among Flagler's most
trusted employees. Ingraham initially came to Florida in 1874, and
worked for Henry Sanford and Henry Plant, two major entrepreneurs,
before joining the Flagler organization.20
Sanford had purchased a large tract of land in central Florida
and Ingraham had laid out and handled the development of the town
of Sanford for him. Ingraham also talked Sanford into building a
railroad to connect Sanford with Kissimmee. Ingraham became presi-
dent of this railroad in 1879. When Plant, a wealthy Tampa investor,
bought Sanford's railroad, Ingraham moved over to become president
of this new line. Ingraham was president of the South Florida Rail-
road when Plant extended the train to Orlando and later to Tampa.
Ingraham was hired away from Plant by Flagler in 1892.21
Two years earlier, in 1890, Ingraham met Julia Tuttle at a
dinner party at her home in Cleveland. Tuttle was preparing to move
to her property at Fort Dallas and remarked to him, "Some day
somebody will build a railroad to Miami. I hope you will be interested
in it, and when they do I will be willing to divide my properties there
and give one-half to the company for a town site." Ingraham re-
sponded, "Well, Mrs. Tuttle, it is a long way off, but stranger things

The Birth of the City of Miami 11

have happened, and possibly I some day may hold you to that prom-
ise."22 Two years later, while still president of the South Florida
Railroad, Ingraham took an expedition across the Everglades from
Fort Myers to Miami to investigate the possibilities of extending the
Plant line to Miami. After the Ingraham expedition reached Julia
Tuttle's home in April 1892, exhausted and half starved, James
Ingraham became impressed with the Biscayne area, spending sev-
eral days exploring it with his hostess. Soon after, however, the Plant
System decided not to extend its railroad to Miami from Tampa, and
six months after the expedition, Ingraham was hired away by Flagler.
In his capacity with the railroad's land department, Ingraham would
become one of Miami's most important early supporters.23
Speaking before a meeting of the Miami Women's Club in
November 1920, on the occasion of a plaque dedication ceremony
in honor of Henry Flagler, Ingraham recalled his return to Miami
following the freeze of February 1895:

I found at Lauderdale, at Lemon City, Buena Vista, Miami, Co-
conut Grove and at Cutler orange trees, lemon trees and lime
trees blooming or about to bloom without a leaf hurt, vegetables
growing in a small way untouched. There had been no frost
there. I gathered up a lot of blooms from these various trees,
put them in damp cotton, and after an in-
terview with Mrs. Tuttle and Mr. and Mrs.
Brickell of Miami, I hurried to St. August- j
ine, where I called on Mr. Flagler and
showed him the orange blossoms, telling
him that I believed that these orange blos-
soms were from the only part of Florida,
except possibly a small area on the extreme
southerly part of the western coast, which
had escaped the freeze; that here was a
body of land more than 40 miles long, be-
tween the Everglades and the Atlantic
Ocean, perhaps very much longer than
that, absolutely untouched, and that I be-
lieved that it would be the home of the cit- James E. Ingraham
rus industry in the future, because it was (HASF 1976-85-1)
absolutely immune from devastating

12 TEQUESTA

freezes. I said: 'I have also here written proposals from Mrs.
Tuttle and Mr. and Mrs. Brickell, inviting you to extend your
railroad from Palm Beach to Miami and offering to share with
you their holdings at Miami for a town site.'
Mr. Flagler looked at me for some minutes in perfect si-
lence, then he said: 'How soon can you arrange for me to go to
Miami?'I2

Flagler had decided to see this "freeze proof" section for him-
self. In late February 1895, the railroad baron traveled by special
train to West Palm Beach before transferring to a launch for a trip
down the Florida East Coast Line canal, which by this time was
completed from Lake Worth to New River. The party spent the night
in Fort Lauderdale, and left by carriage the next morning to travel to
the northern shore of Biscayne Bay where they were met by Tuttle's
launch and brought to Miami. Ingraham recalled that the day was
beautiful and "that night was the most perfect moonlight that I have
ever seen." Before bedtime, Mr. Flagler made the decision to accept
the offers of Tuttle and Brickell, extend his railroad to Miami and
build a resort hotel there.25
The party returned to St. Augustine in early March with a
verbal agreement to extend the railroad to Miami and to develop a
city in that locale, but formal contracts had yet to be drawn up and
signed. No official announcements were made at the time, although
rumors over the meaning of the trip began to appear in the press.26
The Titusville paper observed that, "Some optimists believe the
railroad will be extended to deep water off Key Largo, others think
a mammoth hotel will be constructed on Bay Biscayne."27 From
Sanford: "Flagler has decided to extend to Bay Biscayne and also he
has purchased half of Key Largo,"28 The Jacksonville report noted
that the natives of Bay Biscayne are "very much stirred up by the
advent of the big millionaire's [visit]. It is generally supposed that this
tour means the extension of the east coast line to Bay Biscayne."29
Preliminary to drawing up a formal contract, Flagler wrote Tuttle
a long letter on April 22, 1895, recapping her offer of land to him in
exchange for his extension of the railroad to Miami, laying out a city
and building a hotel. The terms, as they appeared in the letter, pro-
vided that Tuttle would award Flagler a 100-acre tract of land. The
boundaries of this tract would stretch approximately from the bay on
the east (at that time the shoreline ran along today's Biscayne Bou-

The Birth of the City of Miami 13

levard) to Southwest Third Avenue on the west, and from Southeast
and Southwest First Street on the north to the Miami River on the
south. Within this tract, a 13-acre parcel, on which Tuttle's home
stood, was reserved as her "home lot." It was bounded by today's
South Miami Avenue on the west, Southeast Second Avenue on the
east, Southeast Second Street on the north and the Miami River on
the south.30
The remainder of the Tuttle property at the Miami site would
be divided between Flagler and Tuttle. Flagler professed in the letter
that he would prefer to have his portion in a solid tract, but told Tuttle
he would "agree to accept your ideas, viz: an equitable division by
alternate lots."31 Tuttle wisely inserted and stuck to this provision so
that her lots would be as valuable as Flagler's as he laid out the
streets and developed the town. The larger divided tract was bounded
approximately by the Miami River on the south and southwest, North-
east and Northwest Eleventh Street on the north, Northwest Seventh
Avenue on the west, and the Bay on the east. This offer would
eventually be drawn up into a contract that was signed by Tuttle and
Flagler dated October 24, 1895.32
The April 1895 letter also mentioned that Flagler had sent a
similar missive to William Brickell in reply to his offer for extending
the railroad to Miami. Flagler said that Brickell was including 100
acres of land at New River; thus he felt justified in asking for the
same from Tuttle.33
Flagler's letter to Brickell, and the ensuing contract, have not
survived, but from the course of events we can assume the offer
was similar to that of Tuttle's. The Brickells would divide a portion
of their property south of the Miami River with Flagler and, in turn,
the industrialist would construct a bridge across the Miami River. As
with the Tuttle tract, the property would be subdivided by alternate
lots. The boundaries of this property were approximately South Mi-
ami Avenue on the east, Southwest and Northwest Eighth Avenue
on the west, Southwest Fifteenth Road and Southwest Eleventh Street
on the south, and the Miami River on the north. Also included was
the New River land. The Brickells reserved their home lot at the
mouth of the Miami River and all property between the bay and
South Miami Avenue.34
While the railroad's extension to Miami remained unannounced
in the spring of 1895, rumors of this possibility continued to multiply,
fueling real estate activity in the Biscayne Bay area at a time when

14 TEQUESTA

land prices throughout the rest of Florida were relatively depressed
due to the affects of the freeze. In May 1895, prices for bayfront
property were reported as "almost out of sight," but good lands for
agricultural purposes could still be found "from one to two miles back
from the bay," priced reasonably at $10 to $25 an acre.5
The news of the railroad's extension was officially announced
on June 21, 1895, in the pages of Jacksonville's Florida Times-
Union: "It is now a certainty that the East Coast line will be ex-
tended to Bay Biscayne at an early date. A corps of engineers began
the survey this week. The distance is sixty-five miles, with no heavy
grading but few bridges."36 The following day, the paper reported
that "Contractor F.M. C.abott, with a large force of men, has com-
menced to grade."37 The land was graded by removing trees and
bushes in a strip 100 feet wide and smoothing over any uneven
places in the terrain. The track was then laid down the middle of this
strip.
The railroad and canal companies owned, or had grants from
the state, for nearly sixty miles of the sixty-six-mile extension. For
the remaining six miles, they endeavored to persuade the property
owners to donate the right-of-way. J. R. Parrott, vice president and
general manager of the railroad company, in a newspaper interview
appearing in early July, threatened to halt construction of the exten-
sion if the railroad was forced to pay for a portion of the right-of-
way. "At present," Parrott announced, "the country is very sparsely
settled, and our only object in extending the line now would be be-
cause labor and material are so cheap."3" This was, again, due to the
freeze.
The thirteen men of the Corps of Engineers, under supervision
of H. G. Ord, completed their survey and reached Miami on July 15.
They camped at the mouth of the Miami River on Tuttle's property.
While there, they also made a survey map of the 100 acres Tuttle
was to donate to Flagler, the site where the hotel was to be built.39
The canal was completed and navigable between West Palm
Beach and New River, and on August 12, 1895, the canal company
placed one of its own steam-powered boats, the Hittie, on a tri-
weekly run between the two points. Construction of the next phase
of the canal, from Fort Lauderdale to Biscayne Bay, began at the
end of August with one dredge working south while the other the
Biscayne was towed to Biscayne Bay on the Atlantic Ocean side
to begin working northward to meet up with the former.40 By then,

The Birth of the City of Miami 15

A. L. Knowlton, a Justice of the Peace at West Palm Beach, had
resigned his position and gone to the New River area to survey the
town site of Fort Lauderdale.41
In late September, the work of laying the track began.42 The
cross ties were seven inches by nine inches by nine feet and laid
2,800 to a mile. A report made by a state inspector after the exten-
sion was completed noted that the track had been "carefully laid"
and "well spiked, well lined, and evenly spaced on the ties." The
inspector added that "workmanship on all classes of this construction
is good, and the material used is the best that could be obtained."43
With work on the railroad extension to Miami well under way,
settlers began pouring into the promised "freeze proof" lands. Settle-
ments such as Linton today's Delray Beach and Fort Lauder-
dale were springing up along the canal and railroad route. Only a
month old in mid-October 1895, Linton boasted a population of more
than 100, most of whom were male heads of families.44 The men
would arrive in advance of their families to prepare a home before
sending for their wives and children. But still, many more interested
settlers held back to wait until the lots would be put on the market
in Miami. Already, many believed that Miami would surpass West
Palm Beach in growth and importance as a tourist, agricultural and
transportation center.45

Early housing in South Florida, c. 1896. (HASF x-149-x)

16 TEQUESTA

As South Florida underwent its first boom, optimism ran high
and people were excited. Flagler, however, was going through what
was to be the worst time in his life. He married his second wife, Ida
Alice Shourds, on June 5, 1883. The early days of their marriage
were happy, but by 1894, Flagler began to notice peculiarities in her
behavior. She began making wild claims and accusations to Flagler's
doctor and personal friend, George S. Shelton. She claimed that
prominent New Yorkers were involved in many varieties of nefarious
conduct. After consulting a ouija board in early October 1895, Mrs.
Flagler decided that she was in love with the czar of Russia and
would marry him after her husband's death. So strong were her
claims of love for the czar that Dr. Shelton became concerned for
Flagler's life. On October 24, 1894, he called in two mental health
specialists to visit with the Flaglers at their New York residence.
Mrs. Flagler repeated her claim that she was engaged to be married
to the czar and added that the house was filled with Russian spies.46
The diagnosis was delusionaryy insanity" and the physicians
recommended that she be committed to a sanitarium. She was taken
by force on that day and sent to an institution. The following day, Dr.
Shelton wrote to Flagler's friend, Dr. Andrew Anderson in St. Au-
gustine, insisting that Flagler visit Florida to get his mind off his
personal life. Flagler agreed to leave for the Sunshine State the
following week. Dr. Shelton added that Flagler was "almost pros-
trated with grief and anxiety."47
While the date October 24, 1895, brought "grief and anxiety" to
Flagler, it would represent the legal date that Julia Tuttle would see
that her dreams had begun to be fulfilled. On that day, the agreement
that was to become known as Miami's "birth certificate," was drawn
up. The typed contract set forth the items previously agreed upon by
Flagler and Tuttle.48
At that time in October 1895, Miami was recovering from the
effects of a tropical storm that moved through the area three days
earlier, uprooting trees and causing inhabitants to move their boats up
river for safety.49 One report claimed that the wind blew the water
out of Biscayne Bay "until it could be waded."50 West Palm Beach
suffered more severely from the storm as several wharfs were de-
stroyed and the piledriver employed in the construction of a railroad
bridge across Lake Worth from West Palm Beach to Palm Beach
was sunk,5 At the time, Surveyor Knowlton was in Miami studying
the area in order to begin platting the town site of Miami, and W. C.

The Birth of the City of Miami 17

Valentine of Fort Lauderdale was surveying and platting the area at
the fork of the Miami River and some of the Brickell property outside
the town site of Miami.52
Following his doctor's advice, Flagler arrived in Jacksonville on
October 30, on his way to St. Augustine." At the same time, railroad
workers, clearing the right-of-way to Miami, (with graders following
along behind them) were nearing Lemon City.54 On November 4,
Flagler, along with J. R. Parrott, Ingraham and R. T. Goff, left St.
Augustine to inspect his railway, hotels and railroad bridges. He
traveled as far south as Lantana by train, for the tracks ended at that
point.55 In the meantime, the railroad bridge across Lake Worth was
completed while Flagler was in South Florida. With this bridge com-
pleted, workers who had been engaged in its construction, moved
south to begin building railroad bridges over the Hillsboro and New
Rivers.56
In the second week of November, Flagler journeyed to Miami,
returning to St. Augustine on November 14.57 In all likelihood, Flagler
came to Miami to sign the contract of October 24. With that, and the
railroad on its way, activity in Miami began to pick up. Men, both
black and white, from throughout Florida flocked to Miami to await
Flagler's call for workers of all qualifications to begin work on the
promised hotel and city. By late December 1895, seventy-five of
them already were at work clearing the site for the hotel. They lived
mostly in tents and huts in the wilderness that as of yet had no streets
and few cleared paths. These men were primarily victims of the
great freeze that had left both money and work scarce.58
At the December 10 meeting of the Dade County Commission
in Juno, Dade's county seat, Mary Brickell posted a performance
bond to operate a ferry across the Miami River. This conveyance
would allow men camped on the north side of the river to reach the
south side where the Brickells operated their trading post and post
office.59
The long-awaited Florida Coast Line Canal was completed to
Biscayne Bay in mid-January 1896,6Y To inaugurate the canal, Flagler
- its president with other officials, took the first trip along the
canal's uninterrupted, sheltered route of 40 miles from Lake Worth
to Biscayne Bay in the river steamboat J. W. Sweeny under the
command of Capt. S. A. Bravo.61 The line began operating regularly
scheduled steamboat service between Lake Worth and Miami with
the completion of the canal. The boats Hittie and Della left from

18 TEQUESTA

West Palm Beach on alternating days, staying overnight at Fort
Lauderdale, before leaving for Miami the next morning; they returned
to West Palm Beach the same day.62 By then, the railroad extension
had been completed to a point about six miles north of the New
River, although trains had not yet begun to run on it.63
The end of January found 200 men at work clearing the town
site of Miami, prompting the Florida Times-Union to remark, "Ev-
erybody is busy and the boom has commenced.""4 E. H. Harrington
and Charles L. Tyler were doing big business feeding the workmen.
A. L. Knowlton was continuing to survey the town site. The firm of
Ellis, Williams and Branscombe operated a successful fertilizer and
crate business. At Cocoanut Grove, real estate brokers John Fred-
erick and E. C. Dearborn also were busy. The lots in the actual city
site of Miami were not platted and were not yet for sale. However,
there was much land in the adjoining area that was selling.65
February 1896 saw the opening of the railroad extension to Fort
Lauderdale. The first passenger train left Palm Beach on Tuesday,
February 18, at 7:30 a.m.66 The canal steamboat schedule was ad-
justed so that the Della (owned by the canal company) and the
Biscayne (formerly the J. N. Sweeny, owned by the railroad com-
pany) met the arriving trains at Fort Lauderdale on alternate days for
the trip to Miami.67
On February 1, 1896, Mrs. Tuttle fulfilled the first part of her
agreement with Flagler by signing two deeds to transfer land for his

hotel to him, and the 100 acres of land adjoining the hotel site, less
her homesite, to Flagler and Ingraham. The titles to the Brickell and
Tuttle properties were based on early Spanish land grants and had to
be determined to be clear of conflict before the marketing of the
Miami lots began. The law and abstract office of Robbins, Graham
and Chillingworth, a Titusville firm which opened a Miami branch,
was charged with this task. Walter S. Graham, the manager of the
Miami branch, also was preparing to start Miami's first newspaper,
the Miami Metropolis. Graham was formerly part owner of the
Indian River Advocate in Titusville.68
Graham wrote a confidential letter to J. R. Parrott on February
24, 1896, explaining what he felt was "trouble ahead, unless a change
of policy occurs in Miami." He noted that work was progressing on
the north side of the river but that the south side was "not receiving
the proper attention, and the Brickells are getting very sore."69 He
maintained that if the lots on the north side were put on the market
first, the city would develop there, leaving the south side undeveloped
and less desirable. Accordingly, Graham felt that Flagler should begin
construction at once on the promised bridge across the Miami River.
Further, Graham believed the bridge should be completed before any
lots went on sale on either side of the stream; and that work on the
streets on both sides of the river be developed concurrently. Graham
indicated that his firm would pronounce the titles clear to both the
Brickell and Tuttle property simultaneously, so that the Brickells would
have no grounds to blame his title company for any delay.70
Isidor Cohen was one of Miami's earliest merchants, arriving in
February 1896. Cohen arranged to have a small building constructed
on the south side of the river for his store, and secured a row boat
to carry his customers across the river so they would not have to pay
the ferry fare. Within two months, however, Cohen had moved to the
north side of the river, believing business would be better in that
sector.71
On March 3, Flagler dispatched John Sewell and twelve of his
best black workers from Palm Beach to Miami to begin work on the
townsite. They began by grading the site of Flagler's hotel.72 By late
March the railroad extension had reached a point just below Arch
Creek near today's Northeast 135th Street.73 Increasing numbers of
people were coming to Miami. In order to provide them with a place
to stay, Harrington and Tyler leased the Miami Hotel from Julia
Tuttle even before it had a roof over it. Located on today's South

20 TEQUESTA

Miami Avenue near the river, the hotel contained a dining room on
the first floor and rooms on the second which only could be reached
by ladder, since a staircase had not been completed.74 A former
steamboat, the Rockledge, was converted into a floating hotel by E.
E. Vail, towed to Miami and docked at the foot of Avenue D (today's
Miami Avenue).7
Several new businesses had just opened or were about to open
as March drew to a close. These included Frank Budge's hardware
store, Frank Duren's meat market and green grocery, E. L. Brady's
grocery store, and the Lummus Brothers' general store; additionally,
a drug store, candy shop and pool room looked out over Avenue D.
The lumber to build the Bank of Bay Biscayne building was being
hauled to its lot next to the Brady grocery store.76
The lots in Miami owned by Julia Tuttle were put on sale, but
as the Flagler and Brickell lots were not even listed, prospective
purchasers could not compare prices, and initial sales were disap-
pointing. The Tuttle lots, as would the Flagler and Brickell properties,
contained a clause forbidding the manufacture or sale of "any spiri-
tuous or intoxicating liquors, either distilled or fermented.""77 Thus
Miami was to be a "dry" town, with the notable exception of Flagler' s
Royal Palm Hotel.78
Already an addition to Miami had sprung up. Called "North
Miami," it was platted and placed on the market in late March.79 Its
southern border was today's Fourteenth Street, located about one
quarter of a mile north of the Miami townsite several blocks west of
today's Omni shopping mail. The addition was comprised of two
subdivisions, one owned by E. A. Waddell and J. W. Johnson and the
other by the law firm of Robbins, Graham and Chillingsworth. Its lots
contained no liquor clause and saloons quickly moved in. It would
grow to become Miami's den of inequity until it was cleaned up some
fifteen years later.80
The railroad tracks reached Lemon City, near today's North-
east Sixty-second Street, on April 3, 1896. Only seven miles re-
mained to Miami. Those seven miles were covered in four days. The
tracks reached Miami on April 7. There have been several conflict-
ing accounts of the entry of the first train into Miami. Some indicate
that the event occurred at night and others maintain it happened
during the daytime. Accounts from two contemporary newspapers
appear to settle the argument as to when the first train arrived.8'

The Birth of the City of Miami 21

The first train actually arrived on Monday, April 13, 1896. It
was a special, unscheduled train and Flagler was on board, as was
his custom. One reason for the discrepancy over the arrival of the
first train may be that the first regularly scheduled FEC passenger
train did arrive late at night on Wednesday, April 15, the date gen-
erally given as the arrival date of the first train. However, the Florida
Times-Union of April 14 carried a dispatch from its St. Augustine
correspondent, dated April 13, which reported the following:

Mr. Henry Flagler's private car left for the south last night, with
Capt. J. J. Vandergrift, of Pittsburgh, Pa.; Mr. J. E. Ingraham,
Mr. Flagler's general agent; Mr. C. B, Knott, superintendent of
the East Coast hotel system; Vice President J. R. Parrott and
Superintendent R. T. Goff, in the former's private car, also went
south. Messers. MacDonald and W. H. Merrill will join the party
at Palm Beach. At Ft. Lauderdale, contractor McLain will take
the party to inspect the new extension of the F. E. C. railway to
Miami, which is completed, and on which Mr. Joseph
Richardson, general passenger agent, believes this summer
schedule will be put in operation next Wednesday.2

This train is identical to the first train that entered Miami in 1896. (HASF
1977-152-1)

22 TEQUESTA

The weekly Indian River Advocate, in its edition of April 17,
reported the following:

THE FIRST PASSENGER TRAIN OVER THE NEW EXTENSION
At noon Monday last the first passenger train over the new
extension of the Florida East Coast Railway rolled into Miami.
Among those on board the train were Mr. H. M. Flagler, presi-
dentof the road; Vice-President J. R. Parrott, Land Commissioner
J. E. Ingraham, Supt. J. T. Goff, Gen'l Freight Agent W. J. Jarvis,
Contractor J. A. McDonald, C. B. Knott, superintendent of the
East Coast Hotel System; H. W. Merrill, manager Hotel Royal
Poinciana; Dr. Andrew Anderson, St. Augustine; Capt. Van
Dergriff, Pittsburg, Pa.; A. E. Robbinson, John B. Reilly and D.
C. Sutton. Most of the party, soon after their arrival, started for
a few days' cruise on the steamer Biscayne among the Keys.8

Additional confirmation for the arrival of the first train into
Miami on April 13, is found in the diary of Mary Barr Munroe of
Cocoanut Grove, who wrote that Flagler visited the Grove that day
on the Biscayne.8' In the Florida Times-Union of April 18, the
West Palm Beach correspondent, under an April 17 dateline, re-
ported: "The special [train] containing Mr. Flagler and his officers,
which went south Monday [April 13], returned to St. Augustine last
night, passing here about 5 o'clock."85
The first regularly scheduled train arrived on the night of April
15. Later published histories claim that the first week of train service
provided only for freight and that passenger service did not begin
until a week later, April 22. contemporary newspaper accounts, how-
ever, contradict this claim.86
The Indian River Advocate of April 17 reported that "Regular
trains are now running between the above places [Jacksonville and
Miami]."87 The Florida Times-Union noted on April 17 that "The
through schedule started April 16th."88 The use of April 16 is ex-
plained by the fact that the through schedule called for a train to
leave Miami at 5 a.m. In order for the schedule to begin, a train had
to be in Miami to leave at 5 a.m. Since there was no train in Miami
until the night of April 15, it would fall to April 16 to be the first day
that the schedule could start with trains arriving in and leaving from

The Birth of the City of Miami 23

Miami. In the April 22 edition of the Florida Times-Union, the
journal's West Palm Beach correspondent, under an April 21 date-
line, reported, "There is a daily through train from each end, and a
mixed one between Fort Pierce and Miami."89
The arrival of regular train service was a catalyst to the rapid
settlement and development of the entire area. On April 24, the
Brickells deeded a right-of-way to the FEC Railway through their
Fort Lauderdale property. One week later, on May 1, the Brickells
deeded every other lot in the town site of Fort Lauderdale to the Fort
Dallas Land Company, Flagler's land company, headed by James
Ingraham, that was organized to market Flagler's lots in Miami and
Fort Lauderdale.9
Commercial activity increased with the opening of the Bank of
Bay Biscayne on May 2.9 Miami's first newspaper, the Miami Me-
tropolis, issued its first edition on May 15, under the editorship of
Walter S. Graham. The newspaper reported that the Miami lots
owned by Brickell went on sale "last Monday."" It complained that
there was still no bridge across the river and people who wanted to
get mail had to spend an hour waiting for the ferry and pay a ten-
cent toll to learn if they had any mail. The Metropolis ridiculed the
mail service and pleaded for a post office on the north side of the
river, where the Miami community now was firmly entrenched.93
The Metropolis lobbied for the incorporation of Miami before
August 1, 1896. The journal argued that incorporation was necessary
in order for Miamians to "frame and enforce such ordinances as are
necessary." More specifically, an ordinance was necessary to deal
with a problematical sanitary situation. "The removal of excrement
and all kinds of disease-producing products at stated intervals should
be rigidly insisted on," the paper said. In addition, it observed a
problem with "indecent bathing," as workers bathed nude in both the
river and along the banks of the bay.94
To begin the process of incorporation, an informal meeting was
held on the evening of June 17. Frederick S. Morse was called upon
to chair the meeting of about 100 people, forty of whom were reg-
istered voters. To incorporate as a municipality, at least twenty-five
registered voters would be necessary to form a town; 300 or more
voters would enable the municipality to incorporate as a city. The
process required the twenty-five voters desiring incorporation to pro-
pose boundaries for the municipality and publish a notice to all eligible
voters. This notice, to appear in the local newspaper, had to contain

24 TEQUESTA

- _- _ -- -- - J d --
. - -- F ..

i| -

OF
H "s-- - -'.- r" 1.

.u- IADE C>
i - Ja-'"i -- I-" ", ,'"- I

..1896 plat map of Miamishowing the Tuttle and Brickellland and the
.original street numbering system. (Courtesy of Arva Moore Parks)-,

(1) the declaration of a desire to incorporate, (2) the proposed bound-
aries, and (3) the date and time that another public meeting would be
held at which all voters living within the boundaries could vote for or
against the incorporation.95
This initial meeting proceeded without incident, with the excep-
tion of the question of whether or not to include North Miami within
the city limits. Rev. Asbury Caldwell, the local Congregational min-
ister, spoke in favor of including the "wet" area in order to control
the saloon and other elements which, he claimed, "need checking
now." After it became known that neither Flagler nor Tuttle wanted
North Miami included, the proposed boundaries were settled with
that sector excluded. Using today's street numbering system, these
boundaries included: On the north, a point just above Eleventh Street;
on the west, Northwest Seventh Avenue (north of the Miami River),
Northwest and Southwest Eighth Avenue (south of the Miami River);
on the south, beginning at the intersection of Southwest Eighth Av-
enue and Southwest Eleventh Street, going east along Eleventh Street
to the intersection of Fifteenth Road and following that road south-
east to a point in the middle of Biscayne Bay; on the east, the middle
of Biscayne Bay.96
The final order of business before adjournment was to set the
date of the next meeting, which was decided upon as July 28." The
legal notice of the meeting appeared in the Miami Metropolis each
week for five weeks. It outlined the proposed boundaries and was
signed by the required minimum twenty-five voters. It stated in part:

That notice is hereby given to all persons who are registered
voters residing within the above proposed limits of the pro-
posed corporation to assemble on the 28th day of July, A.D.
1896, at the room over "The Lobby," which building is situated
on Avenue "D," in the town of Miami, Florida, to select offic-
ers and organize a municipal government.98

At 2 p.m., on July 28, 1896, the incorporation meeting took
place. The vote was restricted to all men (women did not receive the
right to vote until 1920) who resided in Miami and who had lived in
Dade County for at least six months in order to register to vote. This
allowed men who had moved from West Palm Beach, Juno or Lemon
City to Miami to vote, as those places were all part of Dade County.

26 TEQUESTA

Joseph A. McDonald, Flagler's chief of construction on the Hotel
Royal Palm, was elected chairman of the meeting, H. J, Burkhardt
was elected secretary and John B. McIntyre assistant secretary."
The secretary called the roll to verify that at least two-thirds of
the registered voters were present as the law required. There were
312 in attendance. However, as the meeting progressed, at least 32
stragglers arrived, since 344 votes were tallied in the final voting. The
official minutes of the meeting indicate that the County Supervisor of
Registration certified that there were 424 registered voters eligible to
vote. This number consisted of 243 whites and 181 blacks. Of those
registered voters, 368 were present at the meeting 206 white and
162 black.1"
After ensuring that the required number of voters were present,
Walter. S. Graham moved to vote by acclamation for the first three
items on the ballot. The motion was made and unanimously carried
to incorporate and organize a city government under the corporate
name of "The City of Miami," with the boundaries as proposed, and

that a corporate seal of this municipality shall be as follows: A
round seal two inches in diameter, with the words 'The City of
Miami' arranged in a semicircular form, constituting the border
around the base and the design of the Royal Palm tree in an
upright position in the center of the seal, with the inscription
'Incorporated 1896' inserted just below the center of the seal."0'

The next order of business was to elect officers. This was
carried out by ballot. After the ballots were cast and while they were.
being tabulated, most people left to eat and then reassembled after
dinner to learn the results, which were not announced until 10 p.m.02
The vote was a straight ticket win for the proposed "citizen's ticket"
candidates. There were five proposed tickets, each of which en-
dorsed 26-year-old John B. Reilly for mayor.103 Reilly headed Flagler's
Fort Dallas Land Company in Miami. He received 341 votes. The
following were elected as Miami's first aldermen: Joseph A. McDonald
(334 votes); Walter S. Graham (341 votes); William M. Brown (343
votes); Frederick S. Morse (343 votes); Edward L. Brady (317 votes);
Daniel Cosgrove (343 votes); Frank T. Budge (233 votes). J. M.
Graham (199 votes) was elected city clerk and Young F. Gray (247
votes) was chosen marshal."'4

The Birth of the City of Miami 27

The next item of business was the passage, by a unanimous vote,
of a resolution urging the Postmaster General to direct the postmas-
ter of Miami, Alice Brickell, "to immediately move the post office to
a convenient location on the north side of the Miami River" since
more than ninety percent of the population of Miami was living on
that side. The voters also requested that the Miami post office be
made a full money-order post office.105 Following the post office
resolution, Justice of the Peace George W. Pierce administered the
municipal oath of office to the new mayor Reilly who, in turn, admin-
istered the oath to the seven aldermen.106
The meeting closed with County Solicitor James B. Sanders of
West Palm Beach "calling for three cheers for Miami and the new
officers, which were given with a vim," and with speeches delivered
by J. A. McDonald, lawyer E. F. McKinley, who had provided legal
advice, Walter S. Graham and J. J. Haggerty.o07 Isidor Cohen later
recalled that one of the best speeches had been made by a black
voter, whom he identified as A. C. Lightburn, but whom later records
recognize as Alex C. Lightbourn.108
After the meeting, McKinley telegraphed the results to J. R.
Parrott and J. E. Ingraham, who were spending the night in West
Palm Beach before coming to the new city of Miami.'09 Early the
next morning, McDonald wired the results of the voting to Flagler in
New York. Later that day, the following telegraph message, ad-
dressed to Joseph A. McDonald, was received in Miami:

Telegram received. I congratulate the citizens of Miami upon
the harmony which marked the election yesterday and trust that
the auspicious beginning will result in future prosperity which
will equal the most sanguine expectation of the people of the
new city.

H. M. Flagler110

The election results came as no surprise to Flagler, who has
been called "Miami's Benevolent Dictator." He had invested no small
sum in the railroad extension and development of Miami. He could
not afford to sit by and watch an anti-Flagler group take control of
his city. As he employed the great majority of the potential electors
in the city, his men could decide the election.

28 TEQUESTA

John Sewell wrote that his boss, J. A. McDonald, had put
together a proposed slate of candidates but had chosen banker Wil-
liam M. Brown for mayor."' Sewell felt that the honor of being the
first mayor of Miami should go to a Flagler man and chose John B.
Reilly, who happened to be McDonald's son-in-law. McDonald didn't
think it would look good if he put his relative in the top spot, but later
acquiesced when Sewell told him that he, McDonald, could be an
alderman. Sewell then went to Tuttle and let her choose an alderman
candidate and then did the same with the Brickells.112
The resulting "citizen's ticket" carried the election. This slate
probably was the best that could be found among the early residents
and was instrumental in the development of the fledgling city, with
the notable exception of Marshal Gray, a bibulous lawman, who was
replaced in 1899 by John Frohock.113
The incorporation meeting on July 28 and the prior meeting on
June 17 were both held "at the room over The Lobby.""l4 The exact
location of this building had been somewhat of a mystery in recent
years. The only known picture of a building labeled "The Lobby"
depicted a small, one-story wood frame structure that was not large
enough to have held all of the incorporators.115 This photograph ap-
peared in a Miami Herald feature called "The Good Old Days" on
January 29, 1939. The caption claimed J. M. Graham provided the
picture, "which was taken a short time before Miami's incorporation.
The Lobby Pool and Billiard Parlor, housed in the low-lying structure
in mid-scene, was the center, Graham recalled, of the city's early
social life. The men working on the Royal Palm Hotel used to come
over there [on] evenings and shoot pool.""6
In its first edition, which appeared on May 15, 1896, the Miami
Metropolis carried a brief description of several of Miami's busi-
nessmen, one of whom was Willis M. Myers, proprietor of the Lobby:

Myers... was one of the first businessmen in Miami. When he
talked about a pool room and cold drink stand about three
months ago, most people thought he was wild or foolish. But
he started the affair just the same. Nobody thinks he was a fool
now. Look at the crowd at his place every night. He must be
coining money and he deserves to. He is gentlemanly, courte-
ous and obliging. I"

The Birth of the City of Miami 29

Both scenes shown here are Avenue D (today's South Miami Avenue) in
1896. The photograph above is of the earlier homeofthe Lobby Pool Room,
commonly mistaken as the site of the vote for incorporation. The pool room
business moved into the first floor of the large center building, shown
below, before the incorporation meeting, which was held on the second floor
of this structure. All of these buildings were owned by Julia Tuttle and
leased to local businessmen. (HASF 1962-24-203 and HASF 1975-25-103)

E.^.^aea-ab

30 TEQUESTA

The answer to the mystery of the one-story building is found in
the Florida Times-Union for May 14, 1896, with the report from the
Miami correspondent that, "W. M. Meyers [sic] has removed his
poolroom several doors down the avenue toward the river.""'8 Thus,
the picture was taken before Myers moved his business from the
one-story building to the ground floor of the larger two-story building,
located five buildings south of his first location. All of those buildings
were on the east side of today's South Miami Avenue between
Southeast Second Street and the Miami River. They were owned by
Tuttle and rented out to merchants. The exact location of the larger
building at the time of the incorporation was 350 feet south of the
spur track leading to the Hotel Royal Palm."9
Myers sold the business to H. J. Burkhardt in June 1896, who
had closed the pool room by July 10. However, the building continued
to be referred to as "the Lobby building" and was used for large
meetings. In July 1899, the building was removed to the south end of
the west wing of the Hotel Miami. Five weeks later, P. C. Hainlin
leased the lower floor for a steam laundry to be known as the
"Magic City Steam Laundry."120 But, on November 12, 1899, during
a severe Yellow Fever epidemic, an explosion of a blue flame oil
stove caused a fire to break out in the adjacent Hotel Miami. Within
thirty minutes after the first alarm, the hotel, the Lobby building and
four other structures "were in a mass of ruins."'12 Thus, Miami's
"birth place" was gone little more than three years after incorpora-
tion while the municipality it spawned has not only endured, but it has
achieved, since that time, a prominence as one of the hemisphere's
most important cities.

The author would like to gratefully acknowledge the help given by
Howard Kleinberg, who provided encouragement and editorial assistance.

Press, 1991), 60.
3. "The Day in St. Augustine The Hack Line to Biscayne
Bay," Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville, Fla.), January 10, 1893.
4. "A Trip to Biscayne Bay," The Tropical Sun (Juno, Fla.),
March 9, 1893.
5. Ibid.
6. "The Lower East Coast A Picture of Beautiful Bay
Biscayne and the Lake Worth Region," Florida Times-Union, May
8, 1893.
7. "Southern Part of Dade Fred S. Morse Talks of the
Biscayne Bay Region," The Tropical Sun, November 29, 1894.
8. Joe Knetsch and Paul S. George, "Flagler Sets His Sights on
Biscayne Bay," South Florida History Magazine (winter 1995), 20-25.
9. "Mr. Flagler and the Canal Company," Indian River Advocate
(Titusville, Fla.), March 3, 1893 and March 24, 1893.
10. Alfred Jackson Hanna and Kathryn Abby Hanna, Florida's
Golden Sands (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1950),
245-259.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. Sidney Walter Martin, Florida's Flagler (Athens: University
of Georgia Press, 1949), 129.
14. "A Great Strip of Land Granted to the East Coast Railroad
by the Florida Canal Company," The Florida Star (Titusville, Fla.),
January 25, 1895.
15. "Ice and Snow in Florida," The Florida Citizen (Jacksonville,
Fla.), December 29, 1894. See also "It is a Story of Ruin," The Florida
Citizen, December 30, 1894; "Counting Up The Damage," The Florida
Citizen, December 31, 1894.
16. "No Damaging Freeze at Biscayne Bay," The Florida Star,
January 25, 1895.
17. "The Freeze," Indian River Advocate, February 15, 1895.
See also "Ice Everywhere," Florida Times-Union, February 8, 1895;
"Freeze Grips Florida," Florida Times-Union, February 10, 1895;
"Another Destructive Freeze," Florida Star, February 15, 1895.
18. Ibid.
19. "Reports from New River and Biscayne Bay," Indian River
Advocate, February 15, 1895.
20. "J. E. Ingraham," Indian River Advocate, February 15,
1895. See also "Ingraham Returned to St. Augustine," Indian River

32 TEQUESTA

Advocate, February 22, 1895; "Interesting Story of How Miami Began
Reads Like Romance," The Miami Herald, June 17, 1915; "Memory
of Late Henry M. Flagler Honored at Unveiling of Bronze Tablet
Yesterday," The Miami Herald, November 13, 1920.
21. Harry Gardner Cutler, History of Florida, Past and Present,
Historical and Biographical, vol. 3 (Chicago and New York: Lewis
Publishers, 1923), 370-71. See also "James E. Ingraham," The Tatler
[sic] of Florida Society (St. Augustine, Fla.), March 7, 1908, 2.
22. David Leon Chandler, Henry Flagler, The Astonishing Life
and Times of the Visionary Robber Baron Who Founded Florida
(New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1986), 168-69.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. "Memory of Late Henry M. Flagler," The Miami Herald,
November 13, 1920.
26. "The Flagler Party and Bay Biscayne," Indian River
Advocate, March 22, 1895.
27. Ibid.
28. "Newspapers at Sanford," Indian River Advocate, April 5,
1895.
29. "Biscayne Bay Business," Florida Times-Union, March 12,
1895. See also "Railroad Through the Wilderness," Broward Legacy
15, no. 3-4 (summer/fall 1992), 38-44.
30. Flagler to Tuttle, April 22, 1895, Julia Tuttle Papers, Historical
Museum of Southern Florida, Miami, Fla.
31. Ibid. These lots were conveyed by Tuttle to Flagler's Fort
Dallas Land Company on January 6, 1897. See Dade County, Fla.,
Recorder's Office, Deed Book "Q", 347-352.
32. Contract between Henry M. Flagler and Julia S. Tuttle, as
reproduced in Howard Kleinberg, Miami The Way We Were (Tampa,
Fla.: Surfside Publishing, 1989), 33, 35.
33. Ibid.
34. "The City of Miami, Some Points About the History of the
Place," The Miami Metropolis, October 9, 1896. This article indicates
the date of the Brickell contract was June 12, 1895. The bridge was
completed in December 1896 and the Miami lots were conveyed by
the Brickells to Flagler's Ft. Dallas Land Company on January 6, 1897.
See Dade County, Fla., Recorder's Office, Deed Book "Q", 341-346.
35. "A Trip to Biscayne Bay," Indian River Advocate, May 17,
1895.

The Birth of the City of Miami 33

36. "East Coast Extension," Florida Times-Union, June 21.
1895.
37. "West Palm Beach Items, Work Has Commenced on the
Railroad to Biscayne Bay," Florida Times-Union, June 22, 1895.
38. "The Flagler Railway," Indian River Advocate, July 5, 1895.
39. "East Coast Surveyors," Florida Times-Union, July 17,
1895; Dade County, Fla., Recorder's Office, Deed Book "Q", 257-
267.
40. "The Flagler Railway," Indian River Advocate, August 16,
1895. See also "East Coast Line Canal and Transportation Company,"
Indian River Advocate, August 23, 1895.
41. C. M. Gardner and C. F. Kennedy, Business Directory,
Guide and History of Dade County, Fla., for 1896-97 (West Palm
Beach, Fla.: Tropical Sun Print, 1896), 33.
42. Ibid., 34.
43. Minutes of the Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement
Fund Meeting, July 9, 1896, Records of the State of Florida.
44. "Let Us All Pull Together," Indian River Advocate, October
18, 1895.
45. "Col. John A. McDonald," Indian River Advocate, October
25, 1895. See also "Dade County," Indian River Advocate, October
25,1895.
46. Chandler, Henry Flagler, 110-14. See also Martin, Florida's
Flagler, 169-77; Edward N. Akin, Flagler: Rockefeller Partner and
Florida Baron (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1988, 1992),
147-48.
47. Ibid.
48. Contract between Henry M. Flagler and Julia S. Tuttle, as
reproduced in Kleinberg, Miami The Way We Were, 33, 35.
49. "Great Guns at Miami," Florida Times-Union, October 27,
1895.
50. "Blew the Bay Dry," Florida Times-Union, October 29,
1895.
51. "West Palm Beach," Indian River Advocate, October 25,
1895.
52. "Great Guns at Miami, Florida Times-Union, October 27,
1895.
53. "Arrival of Mr. Flagler," Indian River Advocate, November
1, 1895.
54. "On to Miami, Indian River Advocate, November 1, 1895.

34 TEQUESTA

55. "Inspecting the Railway Extension and Hotels," Indian River
Advocate, November 8, 1895.
56. Gardner and Kennedy, Business Directory, 35. See also
"The Florida East Coast Railway," Indian River Advocate, December
13, 1895.
57. "Mr. H. M. Flagler," Indian River Advocate, November 15,
1895.
58. "Miami's New Hotel," Indian River Advocate, December 27,
1895.
59. Minutes of the County Commission, December 10, 1895,
Records of Dade County, Fla.
60. "Improvements Along the East Coast," Indian River
Advocate, January 10, 1896.
61. "Florida Coast Line Canal," The Tatler [sic] of Society in
Florida, January 18, 1896, 21-22. See also "Miami Meanderings
Reliable Information As To How Affairs Are Progressing on Biscayne
Bay," Indian River Advocate, January 31, 1896.
62. "Steamers to Run on the Canal," Indian River Advocate,
January 10 1896.
63. "Misleading Statements," Indian River Advocate, January
24, 1896. See also "Miami Meanderings Reliable Information As to
How Affairs Are Progressing on Biscayne Bay," Indian River
Advocate, January 31, 1896.
64. "The Boom Is On At Miami," Florida Times-Union, January
31, 1896.
65. Ibid.
66. "East Coast Railway Extension," Indian River Advocate,
February 21, 1896.
67. "West Palm Beach News, George Zapt Acquitted," Florida
Times-Union, April 20, 1896; "Travel," The Tatler [sic] of Society in
Florida, February 22, 1896.
68. Dade County, Fla., Recorder's Office, Deed Book "Q", 257-
267.
69. W. S. Graham to J. R. Parrott, February 24, 1896, as
reproduced in Howard Kleinberg, "Caution Urged in Tuttle, Brickell
Deals," The Miami News, August 1, 1987, 4C.
70. Ibid.
71. Isidor Cohen, Historical Sketches and Sidelights of Miami,
Florida (Miami, privately printed, 1925), 13-20.
72. John Sewell, Miami Memoirs, A New Pictorial Edition of

The City of Miami and the surrounding area in 1899. (Courtesy of Dr. William
M. Straight)

COCOANUTV
I

Yellow Fever at Miami:
The Epidemic of 1899

by William M. Straight, MD

When 1899 dawned, the City of Miami was barely three years
old, yet its 1,700 residents had already endured severe epidemic
disease. Six months earlier, the Spanish-American War brought 7,500
U.S. Army troops to Miami, who, in turn, brought measles and ty-
phoid fever. These diseases spread from the encampment to the
townsfolk and caused a significant number of deaths.' Mindful of this,
the citizens hoped for better luck during 1899, but such was not to
be. Ahead was an epidemic as mysterious and frightening to the
Miamians of 1899 as the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)
is to us today.

An Exceedingly Clean Town

In the eyes of the State Health Officer, Miami was, "an ex-
ceedingly clean town, of rock foundation and wind-swept."2 The
houses, mostly of frame construction, were widely spaced and the
business district, chiefly along today's Miami Avenue and Flagler
Street, boasted two dozen brick and at least two concrete buildings.3
Within the city limits there were eighteen miles of smooth streets
paved with rolled, crushed rock. Miami's boundaries at the time were
Eleventh Street on the north; Seventh/Eighth Avenue on the west;
Fifteenth Road on the south; and Biscayne Bay on the east.
Only a few paved roads extended to the surrounding commu-
nities beyond the city limits. There was a road through the Brickell
Hammock and along the bayfront that was described as "a thing of

William M. Straight, M.D., is a retired physician who has written numer-
ous articles on Florida medical history and has served as historical editor
for the Journal of the Florida Medical Association.

40 TEQUESTA

beauty and a joy forever to tourists, bicyclists and others."4 North-
east Second Avenue, the road to Lemon City, situated five miles
north of Miami, was paved as far as Buena Vista (Northeast Forty-
first Street), as was the road to the bridge over Wagner Creek, with
an extension nearing completion to the "Golf Grounds" (now the site
of the civic center and hospital complex along Northwest Twelfth
Avenue). Other than these, the roads beyond the city limits were
rough, rocky wagon roads, horse trails and footpaths.
Only one bridge crossed the Miami River a crude wooden
drawbridge with a sliding draw at the foot of Southwest Second
Avenue. On the south side of the river, Second Avenue continued as
far as Eighth Street, which was paved east to Brickell Avenue,
which ran south to Coconut Grove.
For the most part, land travel within the city limits was by foot or
bicycle. Beyond the city limits, where paved roads existed, the bi-
cycle was popular together with horses, buggies and carriages. The
physicians of the Miami area made calls in Coconut Grove, Lemon
City and Little River by these modes of transportation. The advent
of the automobile in Miami was still two years away.
Travel by boat was common, particularly if the distance to be cov-
ered was great or a large load was to be transported. Many families
had sailboats, some had ocean-going schooners, and a few, naphtha

Downtown Miami, 1899. This street scene depicts the cleanliness of the city.
(HASFx-217-x)

Yellow Fever at Miami 41

launches. Large sailing ships and steamboats from distant ports called
at the Port of Miami bringing passengers and cargo on regular sched-
ules.
By 1899, Miami boasted an inexhaustible supply of fine water
from "a spring in the Everglades" near the rapids in the river (about
Northwest Twentieth Street, one-fifth mile west of Twenty-seventh
Avenue). Miami also had one-and-a-half miles of sanitary sewer
with an outfall in the river at the foot of Miami Avenue. Most of the
householders, however, were dependent on privies, the buckets of
which were to be emptied at least weekly by the city scavenger.
Electricity from the generators at the Royal Palm Hotel was avail-
able to homes and businesses in the downtown area. Telephones
came to Miami in February 1899.5

Four Physicians In Miami

The young city had the services of four physicians: James Mary
Jackson, Peter Thomas Skaggs, Edwin Worth Pugh and Ruben Har-
rison Huddleston. Beyond the city limits were John Gordon DuPuis
and Henrietta W. Martens in Lemon City and James W. Jackson and
Eleanor Galt Simmons in Coconut
Grove.
In the spring of 1899, prepara-
tions were underway to build a City
Hospital at Northeast Ninth Street and
Biscayne Boulevard on land donated
by Henry M. Flagler. He also contrib-
uted $4,500 toward construction with
the proviso that the city equip and man-
I \ age the hospital.'6
Meanwhile, in the spring of 1899,
Miami's physicians were occupied
with routine doctoring. There were the .
usual obstetrical cases, respiratory and -

urinary tract infections, rattlesnake bites, accidents resulting in dislo
cations or fractures, knife and gunshot wounds from drunken fights,
and hernias that sometimes became strangulated and required sur-
gery. Tuberculosis was always in the community as people with the
disease came to Miami hoping to get well. There were occasional
abdominal infections (possibly appendicitis or diverticulitis of the
colon) that lead to abdominal abscesses which had to be drained. For
instance, on Wednesday, April 26, 1899, Drs. Eleanor Galt Simmons
and James M. Jackson drained a liver abscess from which Claude
Rose had been suffering five months.
Then, too, there were cases of fever. On April 7th, The Miami
Metropolis noted that Mrs. Harry Budge, wife of the city's hard-
ware dealer, "is resting more easily, the fever having been abated."
Two weeks later, the paper stated that this was a case of typhoid
fever. In June, another case of typhoid was reported in the illness of
Ed Hinckson who lived on the Miami River. Although several Miami
pioneers speak of a typhoid epidemic in 1899, these are the only
mentions of typhoid in the newspaper of 1899; perhaps they are
thinking of the epidemic of 1898.

The First Scare

Starting about mid-July and continuing through September, there
were many cases of fever, particularly in the area of the city known
as "the Hammock,"7 which Dr. Jackson diagnosed as dengue fever.8
Jackson's diagnoses were corroborated by Dr. J. Louis Horsey, As-
sistant State Health Officer, and later by Dr. Joseph Yates Porter,
the Florida State Health Officer, both of whom had extensive ex-
perience with epidemic dengue.9 However, only the barest mention
of fever appears in the Metropolis and never the word, "dengue."
Although Jackson later said he had 200 or 300 cases and that the
other physicians took care of 100 more, none of them mentioned
dengue lest the populace panic thinking the epidemic was in reality
yellow fever.10
Yellow fever was a scourge in Florida about every two years during
the nineteenth century. A small number of cases were known to be present
in Havana year around. Therefore, in February 1899, well before the "fever
season," Dr. James M. Jackson, Health Officer of the Port of
Miami, was ordered to fumigate all second class baggage arriving

Yellow Fever at Miami 43

from Havana." One month later, on March 31, a formal quarantine
of Miami against Havana was announced this had been standard
practice since the city's incorporation. The wooden-hull steamer
Lincoln was replaced by the steel-hull steamer Miami on the Miami
to Havana run, possibly because wooden-hull vessels were thought
more likely to hold the contagion of yellow fever."
On August 11, yellow fever broke out in the Soldier's Home,
Hampton, Virginia, among soldiers recently returned from duty in
Havana. Two weeks later, the first case of yellow fever was discov-
ered in Key West. Jackson was notified of this occurrence on Au-
gust 31, prompting him to order the institution of a quarantine against
expected refugees from Key West. The quarantine went into effect
on September 1.13
About September 2, the steamer Santa Lucia, carrying fumi-
gating equipment, took up station in the mouth of the channel at Cape
Florida.14 Persons living on the Keys who wanted to make purchases
in Miami placed their order at this quarantine station, and the orders
were taken by "immunes" to town and brought back to the station.
All craft entering Biscayne Bay were stopped, fumigated and re-
quired to remain in detention from five to seven days. If no sickness
appeared, the craft was permitted to proceed up the bay to Miami.
Among the first parties intercepted was a group of Miami mechanics
who had been working in Key West and had fled under cover of
darkness. When they arrived at the bay, they were stopped and
placed on Soldier's Key in Biscayne Bay where they battled hordes
of mosquitos for a week before entering Miami.15 Another hapless
detainee was Captain Charles John Peacock of Coconut Grove who
was returning from Key West with a schooner load of stable manure
to sell to the farmers. He had to dump the manure in the bay and
t".L.'il FLI-,I' l Iu L AITV JJU

"-F"QORDA -

afir W IRIWF 1 ra..

YellowFeverImmunity Card,signed by Dr. James M.Jackson. (Courtesy of Dr.
William M. Straight)

44 TEQUESTA

remain aboard his ship at the quarantine station until Jackson was
satisfied he was not importing yellow fever.'1 Buoys carrying yellow
flags were anchored in south Biscayne Bay and guards placed along
the shoreline at Cutler in South Dade and Coconut Grove to prevent
refugees from landing. Fishermen, allowed to troll the bay for mack-
erel, brought their catch to the mouth of the River where they blew
a conch horn signalling employees of the Cockran and Fog fishouse
to row out and buy the catch. If a sportsman wanted a day of sailing
on the bay, he was required to obtain a permit from Jackson or his
designee."7
Around the perimeter of the city, guard stations tents with
shotgun-carrying guards appeared about September 18. Alfred
Kemp recalled one "at the rockpit just above Seventeenth Avenue"
(possibly C. J. Rose's rockpit), one guard station at Fisher's corner
(Southwest Eighth Street at Twenty-second Avenue) and one at
McKenzie's comer (Northwest Seventh Street at Twenty-second
Avenue).18 There were also guards on the roads leading from the
Allapattah Prairie, Little River, Lemon City and Buena Vista. A
guard station stood at the approach to the bridge on the south bank
of the river. When Maude Richards Black was to be married to
Charles F. Seibold on October 16, she was not allowed to cross the
bridge into Miami. Her groom, having contracted yellow fever during
an outbreak in the Miami River community in September 1873, and
thus an "immune," could cross the bridge, but Maude could not. To
solve this sticky point, they were married at the United States Experi-
ment Station (Southeast Thirteenth Street and Brickell Avenue).19 It
was an axiom that yellow fever conferred immunity for life. Accord-
ingly, people who could document an earlier bout with yellow fever
or who had lived for ten years in areas were yellow fever was
endemic were given Immune Cards. By showing these to the guards
they could enter or leave the city at will.
The Miami Metropolis repeatedly exhorted Miami's citizenry
to clean up their premises since rubbish and offal as well as human
waste were thought to harbor the yellow fever contagion. Since
privies and water closets were believed to be sources of foul air in
which the germs lived, they had to be kept sweet and clean. Citizens
remained indoors after dark until sunrise because it was thought the
fever could be caught more easily at night. Business houses closed
at four in the afternoon. People who lived just outside the city limits
were passed by the guards, provided they went out of (or into) the

Yellow Fever at Miami 45

city after sunrise and returned to their home before sunset. Trains
manned by "immune" crews brought in food and supplies and took
out produce, but only passengers with Immune Cards could travel on
the trains. Clothing and fabrics had to be fumigated before shipment,
but other manufactured goods did not.20

Yellow Fever Strikes!

By September 2, dread of the scourge spread among Miami's
populace after the first case of yellow fever entered the city from
Key West. On its regular run, the steamship City of Key West
arrived in the morning of August 31, and discharged two passengers.
On September 2, Dr. Jackson was able to track down both passen-
gers and found one, Samuel R. Anderson, in bed with fever. Ander-
son had developed a chill followed by fever in the evening of his
arrival and had remained in bed, though improving, until the day of
Dr. Jackson's visit. Dr. Jackson believed Anderson's illness was
yellow fever because of the absence of severe muscle pains, the
presence of albumin in the urine and his recent residence in Key
West. He immediately confined Anderson and his entire family to the
house and placed two "immunes" as guards to prevent anyone from
entering or leaving the house. The physician wired Dr. Horsey, who
arrived in Miami on September 4, and immediately confirmed the
diagnosis. Dr. Horsey had extensive experience with yellow fever,
but none of Miami's four doctors had seen a case up to that time.
Anderson, his wife and two daughters were put aboard the Drum-
mer, a small schooner, and sent over to Bear Cut for an eighteen-
day quarantine. "Upon the removal of these people, all of their beds
and bed clothing was [sic] destroyed by fire."2t The house was
fumigated, the yard cleaned and the ground, even under the house,
wetted down with bichloride of mercury solution and coated with
lime.22

Panic Reigns

Yellow fever was a dreaded disease; in some epidemics, up-
wards of sixty percent died.23 Did the people panic? Dr. DuPuis
recalled that:

46 TEQUESTA

A great number of citizens became panic-stricken and left town
regardless of the quarantine, some riding bicycles, some on
horses and in wagons and many by foot.... There was a young
pioneer attorney who took to his heels and left Miami so fast
that it was reported in conversation that "He was going at such
a rapid pace down the path, when a Molly Cottontail jumped
up in front of him, he yelled 'Rabbit, get out of my way if you
can't lead the pace.' It was reported, 'the rabbit escaped to the
side and he proceeded northward very rapidly."'4

In the local press there are repeated statements that there was
no panic. Some people, however, decided to go north to visit relatives
or took an extended cruise on a seagoing vessel. Others, including
John Seybold, a prominent baker, pitched tents in the pine and pal-
metto woods beyond the city limits where they spent the nights,
coming into the city after sunrise to take care of business. It was
believed that sleeping in the woods, away from the city, avoided the
contagion that caused yellow fever.25
The disease struck again when I. R. Hargrove, a dancing in-
structor at the Hotel Miami, became sick about September 19, after
spending the night aboard the cattle boat, Laura, moored at the city
dock at the foot of today's Miami Avenue.26 Hargrove was taken to
his room on the second floor of the Hotel Miami, where he was seen
by Drs. Jackson and Horsey and nursed by friends, but ultimately
died on September 26. The hotel was promptly quarantined, the
occupants and anyone who had contact with Hargrove sent to deten-
tion aboard the quarantine vessel, the Santa Lucia, and the Hotel
Miami disinfected, "using bichloride of mercury wash, sulphur dioxide
fumes and formaldehyde gas, first pasting all openings and making
the building as air-tight as possible."27

Scare Is Over

Starting September 26, the sheriff and doctors carried out daily
canvasses. When no new cases appeared, the canvasses were dis-
continued after sixteen days. The editor of the Metropolis believed
the "yellow fever scare is over.'"28 Restrictions on travel and busi-
ness were relaxed and citizens breathed a sigh of relief, but the relief
was short-lived.

Yellow Fever at Miami 47

Two other persons who had been aboard the steamer Laura
developed mild cases of yellow fever, while James Flye, a third
passenger, died with renal failure. His illness was so suspect that Dr.
Horsey performed an autopsy in the middle of the night (October 16),
with Drs. Jackson and Skaggs and several citizens present. Although
there were some dissenters, the final decision was yellow fever.29
On October 17, Philip DeHoff, a clerk at the Hotel Miami who had
nursed Hargrove, became sick with undoubted yellow fever. He had
returned to the Hotel Miami after remaining in detention on the bay
several miles south of Miami with the other hotel occupants for a
suitable length of time. But within five days of his return, DeHoff
became sick.30

Quarantine Is On Again

At this time, Dr. Robert Drake Murray of the United States
Marine Hospital Service, a noted authority on yellow fever, visited
Miami and publicly announced the existence of seven active cases.
Only then, did Dr. Porter officially acknowledge the presence of
yellow fever in Miami, and ordered a rigid quarantine against the rest
of the state. Porter pronounced Philip DeHoff as the "first case" of
the epidemic; later he amended this to I. R. Hargrove. Sam Ander-
son was not recognized as such since he had been so quickly seg-
regated from the community and because nearly three weeks had
elapsed before Hargrove became sick.31
Most physicians believed the chief manner in which yellow
fever spread was through contact with a victim, his clothing, bed-
clothes or other items; a few favored the foul air theory. For Miami-
ans, this meant increased restrictions. Houses containing yellow fe-
ver patients were marked by yellow flags and no one, except doctors,
nurses, and persons with Immune Cards, were allowed to enter or
leave them. Quarantined residents made out grocery lists and posted
them on a tree or fence for neighbors who shopped for them. On
returning, the neighbor set the supplies in the yard for pickup. Upon
the patient's recovery, the house and its contents were disinfected by
fumigation and the yard wetted down with bichloride of mercury then
sprinkled with lime. Only then were the patient and residents of the
house free to circulate in the city. Early in November, fumigation of
outgoing mail was instituted.32

48 TEQUESTA

Believing that depopulation of the city was a quick way to stem
the epidemic, Porter, with the approval of the railroad, offered through-
ticket transportation to Hendersonville, North Carolina, which had
agreed to accept refugees. Escape to the mountains was a time-
honored method in fighting yellow fever. Porter's offer was contin-
gent on at least forty fares being in hand by October 24, because the
connecting lines north of the Florida border would not accept less
than this number. Although the fare was only $24.50, not enough
applicants came forth."
In late October, new cases began to spring up in all quarters of
the city. The number mounted daily, with as many as eight new
cases on several days. J. K. Dorn, who made rounds with Jackson,
posted the names of new cases, as well as deaths, each day on a
blackboard outside Townley Brothers Drug Store. As the cases
mounted, so did the deaths. Edwin Nelson, the furniture store owner
who sold coffins as a sideline, was frequently seen riding with "White
Horse Douglas" who owned and drove the dead-wagon. Some par-
ents were so devastated by the scourge that there was no one to look
after the needs of their children. To manage this problem the Miami
Relief Association, the United Way of that era, opened a home
specifically for the care of these children until their parents were
sufficiently recovered."

Detention Camps Established

On October 27, Camp Francis P. Fleming was established "about
where the Rickenbacker Causeway is today."35 The detention camp

camp for yellow fever patients. (Florida State Archives)

Yellow Fever at Miami 49

consisted of the steamer Santa Lucia, which had apparently been
brought up from Cape Florida, and a cluster of smaller vessels. Dr.
Horsey was in charge of the facility, which could accommodate forty
to sixty residents. Miamians exposed to yellow fever or desirous of
leaving the city were detained there for about ten days. If they had
shown no signs of the disease at the end of this period, they were
taken by boat to Lemon City, which was beyond the quarantine line,
and were free to leave for points north but not south. If, however,
they exhibited signs of the disease, as happened on two occasions,
they were taken back to Miami for treatment. After having served
about forty retainees, Camp Fleming closed around November 6, and
Camp William E. McAdam, a second, more adequate detention camp
was opened at Fulford, twelve miles north of Miami, on November
2.36
Initially, Camp William E. McAdam accommodated sixty resi-
dents, both blacks and whites, but it was later expanded to accom-
modate over 100 internees as the demand increased. The tent camp
was pleasantly situated in "the orange grove of Judge [P. W.] White
of Quincy."37 The tents were arranged on orderly streets, which
were illuminated at night with oil lamps. In the packing house of the
grove, a kitchen and dining room were set up, which the camp guests
dubbed the "Hotel de Stimpson," after the camp's chief medical
officer. It was said that they were served gourmet food rather than
the standard army rations. The "hotel" also served as an entertain-
ment center for dances, skits and other activities. The medical staff
consisted of W. G. Stimpson, Passed Assistant Surgeon of the U.S.
Marine Hospital Service, and Assistant Surgeons Rudolph von Ensdorf
and A. R. Hagan. There was also a "dental tent," presided over by
Dr. Gillespie Enloe, who brought a complete set of instruments from
his office in Miami.3S
The camp consisted of three sections: the asymptomatic section
described above, the suspect section for inmates with vague symptoms,
and the hospital section, located some distance from the other sections.
Physical "inspection" of each camp inmate was carried out at 9 a.m.
and 3 p.m. daily. When a suspect's condition was determined to be
that of yellow fever, he or she was promptly hauled away in the
ambulance, a wagon "formerly used by the New York Bakery."
Three (possibly five) yellow fever victims were hospitalized at the
camp in its brief existence. Those who did not develop yellow fever
were released after ten days of detention, but were not allowed to

50 TEQUESTA

return to Miami until after the quarantine ceased. The camp finally
closed on December 2.39
Meanwhile, back in Miami, the situation grew worse daily. The
need for a hospital became urgent. The City Hospital, built at North-
east Ninth Avenue and Biscayne Boulevard, was completed shortly
after September 22.4' Badgered by the expenses of the epidemic,
however, the city had no funds to carry out its part of the bargain
originally promised to Henry Flagler. An appeal was made to the
State Board of Health but their coffers were empty. Thus it appears
that this hospital did not take patients during the epidemic of 1899.
There might have been another reason for the fact that this new
building, whose construction cost $7,805.64, was not used to avoid
contaminating it with yellow fever.41

Emergency Hospital Built

Into the breach stepped W. W. Prout, a civic minded contractor
and secretary of the Miami Relief Association. He agreed to build an
Emergency Hospital, paying for it out of his own pocket and awaiting
repayment, if any came. During a downpour on Sunday, October 27,
Prout's men began construction of the facility, completing it the fol-
lowing Wednesday, with water and sewer connections in place, and
ready to receive patients. The single-story frame building, which
measured 18 by 88 feet, extended along Northeast First Avenue
from Northeast Third Street to Fourth Street. The hospital consisted
of "four wards, [an] office, baths and full working equipment."42

The Hotel Miami, built in 1896, served as a hospital foryellow fever patients.
(HASF 75-25-143)

Yellow Fever at Miami 51

There was a wing "suitable for cooking purposes with range and all
conveniences provided."43 Mr. Flagler paid for immune nurses (male
and female; black and white), who were recruited in Jacksonville and
Key West, to staff the hospital as well as serve in the community.
He also reimbursed Mr. Prout for the cost of the hospital building
($1,000). The hospital accepted both black and white patients, chiefly
indigents who had no proper place to receive food, lodging and medical
care."
Dr. Porter took charge of the Emergency Hospital and the four
doctors in the community gratuitously gave their assistance in the
care of indigent yellow fever victims, both in the hospital and in the
community. No deaths occurred at the hospital.45
It appears that after the epidemic ended the Emergency Hos-
pital building remained empty. The Miami Metropolis, for December
7, 1900, carried an advertisement: "F. W. Hahn is authorized to sell
the hospital building on Avenue C [Northeast First Avenue]. Apply
quick [sic] for a bargain in lumber."
After Hargrove died on September 26, and the Hotel Miami
was thoroughly fumigated, one of its three floors was used as a
hospital for yellow fever patients. On November 12, while five pa-
tients were convalescing in the hotel, fire broke out. Although the
patients and attending personnel were safely removed, the three-
story, Dade County pine building, hosting the fledgling city's first
hotel, was a total loss in just thirty minutes. The fire also destroyed
five surrounding buildings.46 Rumors spread that the hotel had been
torched by an arsonist to get rid of the contagion within its walls.
These rumors were promptly squelched when it was determined that
the fire began in the room of a yellow fever patient, Mrs. Pell, whose
attendant inadvertently upset a "blue flame oil stove."

Treatments and Remedies

In the treatment of yellow fever, the experts recommended first
a mild laxative Compound Cathartic Pills (colocynth, jalap, calomel
and gamboge). If no bowel movement occurred in six hours, the
patient was given Epsom salts or castor oil, followed by a hot bath
to induce sweating, after which the patient was given a coal tar
product (Antifebrin, Antipyrin), soda and caffeine to lower the fever.
For nausea, an attendant rubbed the neck and temples with ice or
gave one-quarter grain of cocaine in tablet-form. For sleeplessness,

52 TEQUESTA

a patient received chloral hydrate (today known as Noctec). If the
patient was threatened with circulatory collapse, he or she received
an enema of turpentine and whiskey. R. D. Murray, the yellow fever
specialist, customarily started treatment with sixty grains of quinine
because he felt that yellow fever was commonly associated with
malaria and a "little" quinine would not hurt.47
Laymen, who sometimes treated patients, did not have such an
elaborate therapy. Dom described the treatment he and others ad-
ministered to Oscar Nicholson:

There was a fellow with us... a big strapping man. Suddenly he
had a terrible chill. We immediatelyrushed him to his room, got
a bucket of boiling water in which we placed his feet, put him to
bed with several blankets over him, a mustard plaster on his
stomach and cracked ice around his throat and at the top of his
head. In a few minutes he was delirious. It took six of us to hold
him in bed. He would yell... you could hear him in Cuba. The
six of us held him in bed for five hours until he finally dozed off
from weakness. The next morning he was convalescent. He was
fed mostly on liquids and especially a tea made from roasted
watermelon seeds which we thought in those days was a cure
for yellow fever.48

By late November to early December, the epidemic began winding
down with fewer new cases appearing. At this time, the editor of the
Metropolis commented, "The infection has now spread to the colored
section [today's Overtown] where the greater portion of the new
cases are coming from."49 Blacks were generally thought to be rela-
tively resistant to yellow fever.
In anticipation of the lifting of the quarantine, scheduled for
about December 15, the Metropolis published a Proclamation by
Mayor John B. Reilly exhorting all citizens to clean up their premises.
All bedding and bedroom furnishings must be sterilized at the state
disinfecting plant on board the steamer Santa Lucia, which "had
been brought up to the stone pier for that purpose."50 The fumigation
plant exposed the bedding and clothing to superheated steam and
formaldehyde gas. Captain Ridley Curtis Pinder recalled that his suit
came apart from this and was ruined. All single-story dwellings must
be fumigated and "several cheap ones" burned.51

Yellow Fever at Miami 53

Despite the optimism, new cases continued to appear, albeit
less frequently. A light frost occurred on Christmas Eve, a sure sign
that the end of the epidemic was near. The last new case appeared
on New Year's Day, but the quarantine was still in place.
During the night of January 5, 1900, thieves robbed Frank T.
Budge's Hardware, on the northeast corner of Flagler Street and
Miami Avenue. They set the building afire, ostensibly to cover the
theft. Word of the fire reached John Sewell, who had just returned
from a buying trip to New York and was staying at Buena Vista
because of the quarantine. Sewell, whose haberdashery was located
in the Biscayne Hotel building, just across Flagler Street from the
Budge Hardware Store, later wrote:

I knew I had to get down to my store in some way, but I didn't
know how to get beyond the quarantine line. I hopped on my
bicycle ... and decided if I stopped to argue with the guard he
wouldn't let me past, so I just went past him full tilt. It was about
1:30 a.m. then, and the guard was hardly awake before I was
past. I heard him shout at me, but I kept pedalling on.... the
health authorities were in a quandary over my getting past the
quarantine line. They didn't want to let me stay in town for fear
I would bring further yellow fever infection in.... the health
authorities finally settled matters by allowing me to stay at my
store during the daytime. But I had to return to my lodgings at
Buena Vista at 4 p.m. and remain there until 8 a.m. the next day.52

Quarantine Finally Lifted

The quarantine was finally lifted on January 15, 1900. Only then
did the Metropolis editor admit, "When the first scare was reported
a general stampede occurred, but when the real epidemic had fas-
tened itself upon us, our people deported themselves wisely and
thoughtfully, as always characterizes all good Miami citizens."53
With the lifting of the quarantine, the city came alive! Optimism and
jubilation reigned. Citizens and whole families caught outside the quar-
antine, such as William M. Burdine and his family, came streaming
back. The wondrous Royal Palm Hotel opened in time for its fourth
season, and the Miami Transfer Company bought new equipment:

54 TEQUESTA

In their stables we found 15 new surreys, buckboards, landaus,
carriages and phaetons, all of the latest patterns and handsome
beyond description, worth from $300 to $500 each... .Thirty-six
head of horses were shipped from Niagra Falls last Saturday
and are expected to arrive here at once.... [The] company is look-
ing forward to the best winter business in the history of Mi-
ami.54

The Statistics

Although the first case appeared on August 31, according to the
published record, the yellow fever epidemic in Miami officially began
October 17, 1899, and ended January 15, 1900. There were 220
cases, with 13 percent of the city's residents infected; 14 deaths
resulted, which was a mortality rate of 6.4 percent of the city's
populace.
For the most part the epidemic remained localized; there were
no cases in Coconut Grove, Buena Vista, Lemon City or Little River."
One citizen attributed the confinement of the disease to the "Miami
River Valley" to the emptying of sewage into the river. He suggested
a sewer outfall in the bay at the foot of Flagler Street and as far out
as the ship channel. He also suggested that the falls in the river,
located near its headwaters less than five miles west of downtown,
be "blown up" to drain the Everglades and produce a more vigorous
flow that would carry away the sewage that caused "the polluted
vapor from the river settling on the city through the night and early
morning."56

Epilogue

Four physicians appointed by the Surgeon General of the United
States Army, commonly referred to as the Reed Commission, con-
ducted medical research experiments in Cuba. In 1900, their experi-
ments proved conclusively that mosquitoes transmitted yellow fever,
a hypothesis long championed by Cuban physician, Carlos J. Finlay."
On October 27, 1900, the Reed Commission announced its find-
ings: "The mosquito serves as the intermediate host for the parasite
of yellow fever, and it is highly probable that the disease is only
propagated through the bite of this insect.""58 The specific mosquito

Yellow Fever at Miami 55

identified as the carrier was then known as Stegomyia fasciatus;
today we know it as the Aedes aegypti.59
This discovery explained several bits of time-honored yellow
fever folk wisdom. The Aedes aegypti was found to be an urban
mosquito which bred in stagnant collections of water commonly found
around human habitations: in discarded jars, cans, cisterns, roof drains
and catchment basins. This explained the predominence of yellow
fever in cities, as well as the fact that ships sometimes carried yellow
fever from tropical ports mosquitoes bred in the water casks and
bilge.60
The belief that leaving the city before sunset and returning after
dawn to avoid contracting yellow fever was also explained by this discov-
ery the Aedes aegypti is a night biting mosquito. It became clear why
taking refuge in the mountains helped to avoid infection, and why the first
good frost usually marked the end of an epidemic the Aedes
aegypti is quickly killed by cold weather. The Reed Commission
found that the yellow virus must incubate in the mosquito's digestive
tract from nine to thirty days before the mosquito can pass it on,
which explained the delay between the Anderson case and the start
of the Miami epidemic. Finally, the close and confusing association
of yellow fever and dengue fever was clearly evident they are
both transmitted by the Aedes aegypti.61
Whereas public health physicians welcomed the discovery, they
were slow to abandon their sterilization/fumigation stations and the
practice of quarantining vessels leaving tropical ports during the spring,
summer and fall. When Florida's final yellow fever epidemic oc-
curred in Pensacola in 1905, it was quickly contained by isolation of
patients under mosquito netting and vigorous measures to eradicate
mosquitos. However, even in 1905, a few physicians and many lay-
men insisted on extreme measures, such as requiring that Florida
oranges be shipped in screened boxcars when they passed through
Arkansas. The Florida ports of Apalachicola and Carrabelle even
refused to allow a cargo of brick and gasoline to be landed despite
the ship having been cleared by the State Board of Health.62

Acknowledgements: The author is indebted to many individuals for
help. He is especially indebted to Arva Parks McCabe for encouragement,
astute editing and the use of her extensive library and photographic
archives. Others who gave assistance generously were Larry Wiggins,

Endnotes
1. William M. Straight, "Camp Miami, 1898,"Journal ofthe Florida
Medical Association 74 (July 1987): 504-13 (hereinafter JFMA).
2. Joseph Yates Porter, Eleventh Annual Report of the State
Board of Health of Florida, Jacksonville, March 15, 1900, 88
(hereinafter Report, SBH, March 15, 1900).
3. Howard Kleinberg,Miami The Way We Were (Tampa:Surfside
Publishing, 1989), 106-107. The original number/naming of Miami's
streets was changed in October 1920. Throughout this paper locations
will be noted as on today's map.
4. The Miami Metropolis, May 27, 1898, 1.
5. A person appointed by the City but paid by each householder
to pickup the privie buckets and empty the contents at a suitable place.
6. "Our New Hospital." The Miami Metropolis, April 21, 1899,
2. Construction began about May 19, 1899, and was completed shortly
after September 22, 1899; see The Miami Metropolis on those two
dates.
7. The area where the original dense, tropical hardwood forest
remained at that time; roughly Northeast Second Avenue to the bay from
Flagler Street to Northeast Sixth Street. There dwellers lived in small,
poorly built houses and shacks and were dependent on shallow surface
wells and privies. See Annual Report of the Supervising Surgeon of
the Marine-Hospital Service of the United States for the Fiscal Year
1899 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1901), 731-33.
8. Dengue fever is a virus infection characterized by chills, fever,
severe headache, pains in the muscles of the back and extremities and a rash
on the trunk spreading to the extremities. It is also called "breakbone
fever" because of the severity of the pain. In 1899, dengue was
frequently confused with yellow fever, but the appearance of the rash,
absence of albumin in the urine, together with the rarity of death
usually meant the disease was dengue rather than yellow fever.
9. Jackson's Report to Porter, January 20, 1900, Report, SBH,
March 15, 1900, 46.
10. Ibid.
11. Hereinafter "Dr. Jackson" or simply "Jackson" will be used
to indicate James M. Jackson. Dr. John W. Jackson, who was not

Yellow Fever at Miami 57

related to Dr. James M. Jackson, was in practice at Coconut Grove
but he played no part in the epidemic of 1899.
12. Under the supervision of the State Board of Health, and later
the United States Marine Hospital Service, all Florida ports were routinely
quarantined against Havana from April 1 until November 1 each year.
13. Sweeting's Report to Porter, January 20, 1900, Report, SBH,
March 15, 1900, 32.
14. The steamer Santa Lucia belonged to the Florida East Coast
Steamship Company, part of the Flagler interests. She was a wooden-
hull, double decked, sternwheeler, 158 feet long, and 28.6 feet in the
beam. Her draft was 3.4 feet; weight 193 tons gross and 170 net. The
Santa Lucia was a typical river steamer. In late August 1899,
decontamination and fumigation equipment was mounted on the lower
deck along with the galley and a dining room for the crew. The upper
deck was divided into a salon surrounded by 28 staterooms, which
opened into it; Surgeon W. G. Stimpson stated that she could accommodate
36 passengers. The staterooms were likely 6 by 7 feet, and furnished
with upper and lower bunks. Each stateroom included a large bowl and
pitcher, which permitted sponge baths. Astern, on the lower deck, was
a "common" toilet that was flushed with bay water. Above the
stateroom deck was a "hurricane deck" supplied with stanchions over
which an awning could be streched to make a comfortable assembly
space or an isolation ward. See "A New Fumigating Plant," The
Florida Times-Union & Citizen, September 4, 1899, 2.
15. Miami Metropolis, September 8, 1899, 3.
16. The Florida Times-Union & Citizen, September 13, 1899, 2.
17. Alfred L. Kemp, "Coconut Grove The Pioneer Paradise"
(Unpublished manuscript, c. 1965, in author's possession 10.
18. Ibid.
19. Maude Richards Black, interview by author, June 1, 1968;
The Florida Times-Union & Citizen, October 18, 1899, 2.
20. J. M. Hawks, "Urges Precautionary Measures," The Miami
Metropolis, Letter to the Editor, February 26, 1897, 8.
21. Horsey's Report to Porter, January 15, 1900, Report, SBH,
March 15, 1900, 60; Jackson's Report to Porter, January 20, 1900,
Report, SBH, March 15, 1900, 47.
22. Ibid.
23. William M. Straight, "The Yellow Jack," JFMA 58 (August
1971): 31-47.
24. John G. DuPuis, MD, History of Early Medicine History

58 TEQUESTA

of Early Public Schools History of Early Agricultural Relations
in Dade County (Privately printed, 1957), 49-50.
25. Olive Chapman Lauther, The Lonesome Road (Miami: Center
Printing Co., 1963), 80-83.
26. J. K. Dorn, "Recollections of Early Miami," Tequesta,
(1949), 56.
27. Porter, Report, SBH, March 15, 1900, 111.
28. "The Fever Scare," The Miami Metropolis, September 29,
1899,7.
29. Jackson's Report to Porter, January 20, 1900, Report, SBH,
March 15, 1900, 61.
30. The Miami Metropolis, October 27, 1899, 7. See also
DuPuis, History of Early Medicine, 57.
31. "The Doctors Disagree," The Miami Metropolis, October
20, 1899,2.
32. Letters, sealed in envelopes, were individually pounded with a
wooden mallet, the head of which was studded with several large nails.
Having been thus perforated, the letter was placed on a rack, in a chest
containing burning sulfur candles. The fumes of the candles were thus
allowed to permeate the letter in hopes of killing the contagion. See
"Florida Health Notes," State Board of Health of Florida 51
(September 1959): 145.
33. The Miami Metropolis, October 17, 1899, 7.
34. Lauther, The Lonesome Road, 82.
35. Kemp, "Coconut Grove The Pioneer Paradise," 10.
36. The Miami Metropolis, November 3, 1899, 1.
37. "Camp M'Adam," The Florida Times-Union and Citizen,
November 6, 1899, 2.
38. Ibid., 4.
39. For a more detailed description of Camp McAdam see The
Annual Report of the Supervising Surgeon-General, 1899 (op. cit.
endnote # 7), 740-42.
40. The Miami Metropolis, September 22, 1899, 6.
41. Saidee Kolb, interview by author, July 9, 1958.
42. W. W. Prout, "History of Miami's Past, Present Conditions and
Future Importance Told in Detail," The Miami Metropolis, April 24, 1905, 1.
43. "The Emergency Hospital," The Miami Metropolis,
November 3, 1899, 7.
44. Ibid.
45. J. Y. Porter, "Looking Backward Over Fifty Years of Health

Yellow Fever at Miami 59

Work in Florida," JFMA 12 (January 1926): 194.
46. "Sunday's Bad Fire. For the Second Time in Her History
Miami Suffers From the Fire Fiend," The Miami Metropolis, November
17, 1899,3.
47. H. I. Raymond, "Yellow Fever: How It Is Regarded At
Camp Tampa Heights," Medical News 72 (1898): 683-84.
48. Dorn, "Recollections," 57.
49. The Miami Metropolis, November 24, 1899, 3.
50. "Proclamation," The Miami Metropolis, November 17, 1899,
7. The stone pier (also called the "stone dock") jutted into the bay just
south of Flagler Street. It was built by Flagler for use by pleasure boats
connected with the Royal Palm Hotel. Miami's commercial dock, at
that time, was in the river near the foot of Miami Avenue. In 1903, the
Fair Building was built on the stone dock, and later (in early 1925)
when the bayfront was pumped in, preparatory to creating Bayfront
Park, the stone dock was surrounded and covered.
51. Nixon Smiley, "Man Who Came to Florida in 1888 Reflects
on the Past," The Miami Herald, May 5, 1968, 8C.
52. "Burdine's Buys Flagler and Miami Comer," The Miami
Herald, July 31, 1936, 2A.
53. "The Quarantine is Off," The Miami Metropolis, January 19,
1900,8.
54. "New Turnouts," The Miami Metropolis, January 19, 1900, 1.
55. "Yellow Fever Patients," The Miami Metropolis, November
10, 1899,7. One case occurred at "North Miami" on November 1,1899,
and one at "South Miami" on November 7, 1899. North Miami was an
unincorporated area near Miami' s northern boundary; South Miami was
a reference to that part of the community south of the city limits.
56. "Thoughts for the Future," The Miami Metropolis, December
22,1899, 7.
57. Walter Reed, James Carroll, Aristides Agramonte, and Jesse
W. Lazear, "The Etiology of Yellow Fever," The Philadelphia Medical
Journal, October 27, 1900, 796.
58. Ibid.
59. Ibid.
60. Ibid.
61. Ibid.
62. Hiram Byrd, "Rational Quarantine," Transactions of the
Florida Medical Association, April 18-20, 1906, (Jacksonville: H.
& W. B. Drew Co.), 103-109.

60 TEQUESTA

i~I
.~. .'. p.

,* *- h.,
.5. i

Charles Torrey Simpson in South Florida. (HASF 80-158-12)

The Sage of Biscayne Bay: Charles
Torrey Simpson's Love Affair
with South Florida

by Leah La Plante

I do not want to investigate nature as though I were solving a
problem in mathematics. I want none of the elements of busi-
ness to enter into any of my relations with it. I am not and
cannot be a scientific attorney. In my attempts to unravel its
mysteries I have a sense of reverence and devotion, I feel as
though I were on enchanted ground. And whenever any of its
mysteries are revealed to me I have a feeling of elation I was
about to say exaltation, just as though the birds or the trees
had told me their secrets and I had understood their language
-and nature herself had made me a confidant.
Charles Torrey Simpson
In Lower Florida Wilds, 1920

The average sun-struck South Florida tourist, much less the resident,
is probably not sure whether the area is "tropical" or "sub-tropical." What-
ever the proper latitudinal designation, the image of exotic South Florida
is formed and elaborated by a prevailing southeast wind of flashy publicity
and wildly varied experience that has swirled the sun, the Atlantic
and the Gulf of Mexico around a lush jungle of palms, bananas,
orchids and breadfruit, across an Everglades of alligators and grace-
fully plumed herons, down to the Florida Keys' legendary pendant
jewels of the "Flowerida" necklace.

An English professor at Miami-Dade Community College's Wolfson Cam-
pus, author Leah La Plante is a native Miamian who grew up in the
downtown area. She raised two daughters on a jungle acre near Fairchild
Garden, where she has long been a member. Currently, La Plante is work-
ing on a book about early South Florida naturalists.

62 TEQUESTA

Some came to pluck the flowers to sell for a profit. Others
became enchanted by the area's unique natural richness and beauty
and stayed to nurture and protect it. Fortunately for South Florida,
one of the latter group was Charles Torrey Simpson, brilliant, self-
taught field naturalist and gifted writer of a type that is almost extinct,
who in 1905 moved to Lemon City, a few miles north of Miami, on
Biscayne Bay. "I loved Florida on sight," says Simpson in his book
Florida Wild Life, published in 1932, the year he died. "It is, today,
dearer to me than any place on earth."' For the last twenty-seven
years of his life Simpson devoted himself with a passion to exploring
and writing about the pine and palmetto flatlands, Everglades, hard-
wood hammocks and Keys even then seriously threatened by
rudely encroaching civilization.
Charles Torrey Simpson, known in his day variously as The
Sage of Biscayne Bay, Doctor Simpson (in 1927 he received the first
honorary doctorate in science given by the University of Miami), The
Professor, and 'The Old Man' (as he called himself), wrote four
books about South Florida nature: Ornamental Gardening in Florida
(1916), In Lower Florida Wilds (1920), Out of Doors in Florida
(1924), and Florida Wild Life (1932), and a great many articles in
magazines and newspapers. While Simpson was appreciated and
honored in his lifetime, his name is most familiar today as that of the
City of Miami's Simpson Park, one of two remaining protected pieces
of the Brickell Hammock, which originally stretched from the Miami
River south to Coconut Grove and beyond, and from the Everglades
to Biscayne Bay, alongside of which was an Indian trail. First named
Jungle Park, in 1927 it was renamed in honor of Simpson, called by
the Miami Parks Division "the father of all South Florida naturalists,"
because of his zeal for preserving native plant species.2 In her speech
at the dedication of the park's newly-built meeting house in 1931,
Mrs. R. M. Seymour, Education Director of the Council of Garden
Club Presidents of Greater Miami, said, "Simpson Park is well named
for Charles Torrey Simpson, the one Florida naturalist who ranks
with John Muir, John Burroughs, and other writers of wild life and
the natural character of place. His books are and always will be the
most authoritative source of information on the natural history of
South Florida."3
Simpson was an original, his life the stuff of legend. He was born on
June 3, 1846, in Tiskilwa, Illinois, the seventh child of Jabez and Matilda
Simpson;4 theirs was a poor pioneer family living in a log cabin on the

The Sage of Biscayne Bay 63

prairie.5 In later life Simpson revealed that "Some of the love I have
for the great out-of-doors I got from my mother. She knew the name
of every common flower in the fields and woods around my boyhood
home and was glad to answer my eager questions."6 As a child, he
developed a fondness for natural history, making collections of shells,
minerals and fossils, and studying botany.
Like Darwin, Edison, Burbank and other well-known scientists,
Simpson had little formal education. Later in his life, he said that he had
hated school, complaining that he could never understand sentence pars-
ing and math. "The fields and woods were my school."7 Raised on a farm,
he was first a farmer. "While following the plow it was my custom to carry
a little box on the plow handles and when a shell or specimen was found
I put it in the box and looked up the subject in a book or sent the specimen
to the state geological survey."8 Collecting shells was his first passion,
South Florida was to be his second and last. Simpson went on to work as
a miner, carpenter (he built his South Florida house almost single-
handedly), cowboy (for three years in Nebraska), soldier (in the 57th
Illinois regiment of the Union Army in the War Between the States,
he was with General William T. Sherman in several minor engage-
ments through Georgia from Atlanta to the sea), sailor (after the war
Simpson joined the navy to see the world; for three years, aboard the
Shenandoah, he traveled to Europe, Africa, and the Mediterranean,
collecting shells and closely observing the natural world around him).9
Finally, Simpson settled into the major work of his first life -
mollusks. In the 1880s he had established a reputation as a conchologist.
In Florida Wild Life, Simpson wrote, "There is a nameless fascination
about collecting ... I have been a collector from infancy in fact, I think
I was born one, though I have no recollection of collecting during my pre-
natal existence.""' In the same book, he tells about his first trip to
Florida. In December 1881, he and several friends went by rail and
boat down the west coast to Bradenton, south of Tampa. He had
studied Chapman's Southern Flora and therefore knew many of the
trees and plants on sight." Having collected a "camel load" of shells,
he was lucky enough to run into a marine biologist from the Chicago
Academy of Sciences who helped him identify them.12 Reminiscing
after fifty years, Simpson said:

These were golden days and I look back upon them as among
the happiest of my life. I was young and filled with splendid
enthusiasm; my companions were congenial and were having

64 TEQUESTA

the time of their lives; our whole environment could not have
been improved upon. For many years I had dreamed of Florida,
hoped for it, almost prayed for it, and now my dream had come
true and all was far more strange and wonderful than I had sup-
posed it could be."

In the early 1880s, Simpson lived for four years in Bradenton,
supporting himself as a carpenter-contractor while he explored Florida's
lower wilds. During that period, he made a significant plant and shell
collecting trip to Honduras, returning with a variety of the first tropi-
cal plants introduced from that area, some of which found wide
distribution in South Florida.14
In 1889, when Simpson was forty-three, his reputation as a
conchologist was sufficient for him to be hired by the U.S. National
(Smithsonian) Museum in Washington, D.C. In October of that year,
he received a letter from William H. Dall, Curator of the Department
of Mollusks, offering him a position as an assistant, with a starting
salary of $75.00 a month this for someone who barely had a high
school education!'5 Nevertheless, as Nixon Smiley, Miami Herald
columnist and fellow natural-
ist, noted, Simpson was said
S to le, to be able to identify some
S. -a ten thousand shells by sight
and give their Latin names.16
Simpson spent thirteen years
at the Smithsonian, traveling
often to the West Indies and
the Bahamas, classifying two
thousand species of freshwa-
ter snails and mussels."7
S Degreeless but an undeniable
S authority in his field, he oc-
casionally lectured at
S Georgetown University. One
..- tribute came in a letter from
Henry A. Pilsbry, Curator of
Simpson, to left, and George Clapp, the Department of Mollusks
aluminum manufacturer and amateur of the Academy of Natural
conchologist, together on one of their ece of ad a
many trips. (HASFx-763-49) Sciences of Philadelphia: "I
can congratulate you upon

The Sage of Biscayne Bay 65

the recognition of the value of your achievement ... both in Europe
and America. Wherever fresh water bivalves are studied, it is ac-
knowledged that your work began a new era...."18 Ultimately the
museum published a five-hundred-page report on his findings, which
Simpson described as "the first scientific classification of its kind
ever made in this country.""19
In 1897, Cornelia Couch, Simpson's first wife, died, leaving one
son, Pliny. In 1902, he married Flora Roper, widow of a botanist-
conchologist friend, who had one daughter, Marion.20 South Florida
may have been their mutual fond dream, because later that year,
Flora came to the area to look for possible homesites. Writing in the
Florida State Horticultural Society Bulletin in 1913, Simpson ex-
plained, "I chose [the Lemon City location] after studying Cuba,
Haiti, Jamaica and the Bahamas. These islands have the advantage
of a more tropical climate than South Florida, their soil is generally
richer, but I felt that to them could be applied the lines from the
missionary hymn, 'Where every prospect pleases, and only man is
vile.'"'21 The Simpson property in Lemon City consisted of nine and
one-half acres of mostly pineland, with a small hammock area and
a frontage of six hundred feet on Biscayne Bay. Simpson retired
from the Smithsonian in 1905 at the age of fifty-six, and immediately
moved to Florida. In later life he said with a laugh, "I thought my
work was done then," realizing that it had hardly begun.2
Simpson's first major accomplishment after settling into his be-
loved new world was building his house. An experienced carpenter,
he designed and built it himself, with the help of his son, Pliny. Only
the heart of durable Dade County pine was used in its construction.
Marion Roper, Simpson's stepdaughter, said in later years that the
home was modeled after a picture of an inn in Honolulu that Simpson
found in a set of books, Our Islands and Their People, published
in 1899.23 In his early book, Ornamental Gardening in Florida,
Simpson, in a characteristically humorous and ironic tone, wrote:

Some of the best architects in the country have pronounced
my house an atrocity, and I present it to my readers [in a pho-
tograph] in order that they may know what an atrocity is and
be able to distinguish one at sight ... the living part elevated
well above the ground, a wide, encircling veranda or gallery,
as it is often called in South Florida and the West Indies, and

66 TEQUESTA

the rather sharp roof which has never leaked seriously in the
worst hurricane. Some of the ideas embodied in it have been
taken from dwellings in Jamaica, Hawaii, Cuba and the Philip-
pines; others are my own, and it is not like anything in the heav-
ens above, the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth. 4

The Sentinels, home of Charles Torrey Simpson (HASF x-763-54)

In Lemon City: Pioneering on Biscayne Bay, 1850-1925,
Thelma Peters simply describes the Simpson house as a frame struc-
ture of two stories that was built seven or eight feet off the ground,
with a basement enclosed in lattice.25
While Simpson was justifiably proud of his house, for the most
part his thoughts were drawn to the surroundings:

There were two magnificent Caribbean pines in front of the
house, eighty feet high and in the full glory of robust life. I called
them the Sentinels, and from them I named my house. I felt they
would watch over and guard me and mine. But the glory of the
place was a couple of acres of fine young hammock that lay
within a few rods of my door containing a large variety of mostly

The Sage of Biscayne Bay 67

tropical growth, a thing of joy and inspiration. Year in and year
out its greenery, its peace and quiet have appealed to me and
from it I have learned some of the most valuable lessons of my
life.26

And, in those days, a short distance to the west lay the Everglades.
It would be nine years before there was electricity and ice.
In Lemon City, Thelma Peters wrote that at the Sentinels a
"vista was opened to the bay through the mangrove, and a path was
built up with rocks across the swamp, giving access to the dock,
boathouse and pavilion that Simpson built over the water. The pavil-
ion, open to the breezes, was a favorite spot of the Simpsons', and
they often entertained their friends there."27 And of friends there
were many, such as fellow naturalists David Fairchild, John Kunkel
Small, Liberty Hyde Bailey, Wilson Popenoe, John Gifford, Marjory
Stoneman Douglas and others who both shared Simpson's apprecia-
tion of the unique South Florida environment and also made a name
for themselves in part by writing about it. Later in life, Mrs. Simpson's
daughter, Marion Roper, recalled that one of the visitors to the Sen-
tinels was James Deering, who came to consult with Simpson about
the landscaping of Vizcaya, his stunning Mediterranean villa on Bis-
cayne Bay. "Mr. Deering was a very serious man most of the time,"
Miss Roper said, "but after a drink or two he became jovial and full
of fun."28 And then there were the neighbors and the endless pro-
cession of garden clubs. Toward the end of his life, Simpson once
estimated that he had shown as many as fifty thousand people around
his garden. According to David Fairchild, "Simpson's charming per-
sonality and unfailing generosity towards everyone who came for
information or plants made his place a general rendezvous."29
In his book, A Yank Pioneer in Florida, Allen Andrews, after
a visit to the Sentinels, characterized Simpson as:

Most gracious and kindly, especially to kindred souls who are
interested in Florida wild life and its preservation. One might
ordinarily be inclined to visualize an outstanding authority on
botany, tree snails and Florida wild life as a dry-as-dust indi-
vidual, entirely wrapped up in his scientific investigations and
devoid of all sense of humor. On the contrary, the Doctor is
possessed of a keen wit that is continually effervescing, and

68 TEQUESTA

whether the joke is on him or his visitors makes no difference in
his appreciation of it.""3

This does, however, contrast with the observation of his step-
daughter, Marion, that "the qualities that made him so successful and
popular with others didn't always make him pleasant to live with. He
had a very strong will, and would push through with anything he set
out to do at any cost."32 One would believe this of someone who, as
he said, "published nine good-sized volumes and a considerable num-
ber of scientific papers..., besides hundreds of articles for magazines
and newspapers."32
In a late overview of the Sentinels, Simpson counted 3,000 varieties
of plants: over 100 species of trees and shrubs, 75 orchid species, 150 of
palms, 20 of rubber trees, 100 of fruits of all kinds, and many single
species of rare trees and plants. Simpson the collector gathered around him
in a botanical embrace trees and plants that were both native and the result
of his many collecting trips throughout the Caribbean. He explained that
the money for every plant he purchased was obtained by going without
a meal.33 How glorious it would have been for Simpson's private green
world to be preserved. Just before his death in 1932, the Miami Rotary
Club inaugurated a movement to buy the estate and set it aside as

Rustic stone bridge and brackish pool at The Sentinels in Lemon City, home
of Charles Simpson. Simpson built the bridge and walls himself.
(HASFx-287-2)

The Sage of Biscayne Bay 69

a public park, since it was considered one of the finest collections of
sub-tropical flora in the world. The Simpsons were in favor of the
Rotary Club's intentions, but for reasons unknown the idea appar-
ently did not pass the suggestion stage. As late as 1944, the city of
Miami considered purchasing the entire Simpson property and turning
it into a park, but the plans fell through.34 Of the private gardens, his
and those of the other significant plant explorers and naturalists of
this early period, only the Kampong, the Fairchild estate in Coconut
Grove, is still intact and is open to the public for special guided tours.
Simpson was fifty-three when he finally settled into Florida for
good. Tall and slender, he was distinguished-looking, with a white
moustache and beard, except for his style of dress, typically old
outdoor clothes. In Miami U.S.A., Helen Muir describes Simpson
"wearing his faded khaki trousers, torn shirt and canvas shoes, car-
rying a stained bamboo staff, conducting a 'wading trip' to Big Cypress
Swamp for nearly one hundred embryonic botanists."" The reader
of his South Florida nature books, knowing Simpson as a tireless,
nonstop explorer, can easily imagine how he would have looked. In
a letter written to a friend in 1929, Simpson noted:

I probably have made a hundred trips to the lower part of the
state and the Keys; have repeatedly tramped the latter from Key
Largo to Key West. Sometimes I carried a little tent and about
as often went without, camping out alone, have been eaten with
swarms of insects, have almost frozen and then been burned
with heat. Once I went 38 hours without food and have almost
perished with thirst. But there was a charm, an enticement about
it all and I could never give it up.6

Then there was the scorn of various locals Conchs (water people)
and Crackers (inland dwellers), who took him for a dangerous desperado
instead of a famished and exhausted naturalist and denied him food or
shelter. Nixon Smiley told the story of how Simpson was once almost
arrested as a vagrant when he returned to Miami at the end of an exploring
trip, tired and dirty, with an old canvas bag of plants and shells over his
shoulder.37
'The Old Man' divided his energies between gardening at the
Sentinels and exploring the wilds, somehow getting himself indoors to
work with his collection of over 10,000 shells, which was kept on the

70 TEQUESTA

ground floor, to read in his extensive library, and to write. In addition,
on September 5, 1914, Simpson received a letter from P. H. Dorsett,
Acting Agricultural Explorer in Charge, Foreign Seed and Plant In-
troduction, U.S. Department of Agriculture, appointing him as a
'Collaborator,' at three hundred dollars per annum (a post he held
until June 1932). Simpson served as a consultant, conducted experi-
mental planting at the Sentinels, and allowed for the use of his li-
brary.38 He continued to write, although he realized little revenue
from it. Simpson wrote in 1924, "I believe I could make more money
stealing than writing for a living." About his first Florida book, Or-
namental Gardening in Florida, he complained that "the publishers
did not deal fairly with me and tried to cheat and dodge in every way.
Don't give any work to Little and Ives is my advice."39
Simpson got his start as a South Florida nature writer when he was
asked by Dr. Henry Nehrling to prepare articles for the Florida Horticultural
Society.40 His first essay concerned Dade County plants, which at-
tracted the attention of David Fairchild and James Deering's brother,
Charles, a strong naturalist. The article, entitled "Native and Exotic
Plants of Dade County, Florida," included photographs, and it was
distributed as a guide for plant growers in the area. That, as Simpson
explained, "got my feet into it."4' Then came his first South Florida
book, Ornamental Gardening in Florida, dedicated to Charles
Deering, "who, instead of destroying the hammock, is creating it,"
and subtitled A Treatise on the Decorative Plants Adapted to
Florida and Their Cultivation, with Suggestions for the Orna-
mentation of Florida Homes and Grounds. Several of the chapters
had already appeared in Tropic Magazine, which began publishing
in Miami in 1914. Simpson became a regular contributor.
In his introduction to Ornamental Gardening in Florida, Simpson,
with uncharacteristic optimism in such matters, wrote:

I can look forward with full confidence to a time in the near fu-
ture when a large area within the territory covered in this work
will be girded with the finest of roads bordered with beautiful
tropical and semi-tropical shade trees; I can see the land filled
with happy homes shaded and embowered with the glorious
vegetation of the equatorial regions, a land of peace and con-
tentment, a land of hope, of rest for the weary, a land of peren-
nial verdure and fadeless beauty.42

The Sage of Biscayne Bay 71

Simpson had so often bemoaned the fate of the wild in the path
of burgeoning man that one cannot avoid reading this as hope tem-
porarily overcoming his more usual deep concern for the environ-
ment, as expressed in this line from the first chapter: "Mankind
everywhere has an insane desire to waste and destroy the good and
beautiful things that nature has lavished upon him."43 Of his four
South Florida books, only Ornamental Gardening in Florida reaches
out directly to the reader with the practical approach of giving advice
on gardening in the state, especially in reference to identifying and
recommending suitable native and introduced trees and plants.
Simpson's other books essentially leave civilization to its own
follies and retreat to the wilderness. He announced in In Lower
Florida Wilds:

I know of no greater pleasure than that of a naturalist or collec-
tor, in the woods, the swamps, along the streams or upon the
open seashore. I pity those whose entire life and energies are
devoted to money making, who have never revelled in the
beauty and freedom of the great out-of-doors.... Here is opened
wide the great book of nature, the gleaming page filled with
wonders. Here too, is health, peace, and contentment, and a
new life for the soul cloyed with the artificialities of an over
stimulated civilization."

According to one reviewer of In Lower Florida Wilds: "Dr. Simpson
is so big a man that the luxury of naturalness is his by right. The value
of his work to Florida cannot be computed."45 Thomas Barbour, writing
in That Vanishing Eden: "The best account of the Keys with which
I am acquainted is in Charles Torrey Simpson's In Lower Florida
Wilds. Simpson ... was thoroughly endued with the spirit of poetry,...
and was a first-class plantsman. He exerted an extraordinary influ-
ence on the lower Florida community and has left a treasured memory
behind him."46
Most often the naturally gregarious Simpson opened the great
book of nature with one or several companions. In reference to his
first visit to Long Key, he relates in In Lower Florida Wilds:

My neighbor, John Soar, and Wilson Popenoe of the Depart-
ment of Agriculture, and I took a two days' tramp over Long

72 TEQUESTA

Key to botanize and explore.... When night fell, we gathered
some dead pine wood ... and built a fine fire. After a cold sup-
per and some yams we tried to rest. The mosquitoes were bad;
the sharp uneven rock like Banquo' s ghost murdered sleep. The
sky was overcast, the wind southwest, but we realized a norther
was coming... a cold, steady rain began to fall. Soaked through,
but with our blankets wrapped about us, we sat around our
weakening fire and 'made a night of it....' Congenial men can
draw very near to each other under such circumstances, and
although we were cold, wet, and half devoured by mosquitoes,
though our environment was the dreariest imaginable, the
memory of that night is one of my very pleasantest.7

On another trip in a hammock, this time alone, surrounded by
live oaks, gumbo limbos, West Indian cherry, lancewoods, white ilex,
and even some royal palms, Simpson, in Out of Doors in Florida,
observed that:

Not the slightest sound disturbed me; in fact one of the charms
of the great forest is its stillness. I sat and fairly drank in the
wonderful silence and loneliness of the hammock. In such a

place one must be alone to enjoy the full beauty and sweet-
ness of it all. Even the presence of the most congenial friend or
lover of nature is distracting and in a sense a disturbing ele-
ment. Alone with uncovered head I bared my life, my all to the
Great Power of the Universe, call it Nature, God, Jehovah, Al-
lah, Brahma or whatever you will, and reverently worshipped.'a

One of Simpson's deeply felt convictions was that plants are some-
how sentient beings. In In Lower Florida Wilds, after elaborating at
length on the wonders of plant adaptation, he remarked:

It seems to me that there is a soul throughout nature, that the
animals, and I like to believe, the plants, to a certain extent,
think... .A palm sends its growing stem deep into the earth and
buries its vitals to protect them from fire; the mangrove raises
itself high on stilted roots in order that it may live above the
water and breathe; an orchid perfects a complicated device to
compel honey-loving insects to cross-fertilize its pollen.... If the
work of man is the result of thought, that of animals and plants
must be so in some lesser degree.49

In reference to the way the strangler fig gradually eliminates
and replaces its host tree:

It looks very much like the result of planning and reasoning, of
a deliberate selfishness of the worst sort. The helpless tree
which is being crushed and strangled in the embrace of the fig,
the long, lithe roots thrusting themselves into every crevice,
wrapping tighter and tighter about their victim, remind one of
Laocoon and the serpents.50

In his writing, Simpson continually returned to "thinking" nature. In
Out of Doors in Florida, he addressed the tendency of some plants
to propagate themselves by sprouts as well as seeds:

The idea of sprouts seems to me like a stroke of genius. Like
the invention of the steam engine, the telegraph and telephone,
these bring a boon to the human race. It will be noticed that I

74 TEQUESTA

speak of plants and animals as if they studied, as though they
invented things which benefit themselves and their race. Why
not? They are constantly engaged in doing such things, in
making short cuts, in achieving results, in lifting themselves
out of a low and degraded position into a higher and better one,
and this looks to meexactly like the work of intelligence, brains
if I may say so. Had a man invented the sprout system, he would
have been a second Morse or Fulton51

In a later chapter, Simpson describes the staying power of the
saw palmetto: "Nothing could successfully oppose it; it is full of
initiative; it is ambitious, smart!" In Florida Wild Life: "I may be told
that all these things are so because they could not be otherwise, that
the trees are simply obeying the fixed laws of nature; yet somehow
I like to believe that in all this there is a purpose, soul, intelligence,
almost thought, that these things reach results in somewhat the same
fashion I do."53
Most of all in Simpson's writings
there speaks a brilliant scientist who was
at the same time humble, warm and
friendly, spontaneous, good-humored, ex-
pressing an almost childlike enthusiasm
about his green kingdom. After one wil-
derness exploration with a fellow scien-
tist, he reports, "I fairly shouted in my
exuberance as one new thing after an-
other turned up until the Doctor claimed
he was really worried about me and
thought I needed medical treatment."54
On a later trip, upon finding a much-
.' ~ sought-after tree snail: "I capered about
-' like a happy boy; I rubbed it against my
cheek and lovingly patted it; I talked fool-
ishly to it. No miser ever gloated over
his gold as I did over that magnificent
snail."55 On Lignumvitae Key, in refer-
CharlesT. Simpson, in his ence to his inability to throw chunks of
most comfortable state. wood or rock up onto a high tree branch
(Courtesy ofJohn Clark to dislodge a snail, Simpson calculated
Eckhoft) that, "I might hit the side of a good sized

The Sage of Biscayne Bay 75

barn if it were not too far away and the wind was favorable, but that
is about all."56 This is the prevailing tone of 'The Old Man,' who in
over eighty years of hard work and achievement never lost his joie
de vivre, his fundamental need to share his love of nature, his delight
in expressing it.
Not everyone understood and appreciated this highly original
and far-ranging naturalist. In Out of Doors in Florida, Simpson
reports that on one trip to a Caribbean island, some of the local
people thought of him as "... a sort of semi-lunatic or as one lacking
in mentality.... No man in his right mind would leave his home and ...
wander around the woods and along the shores to pull leaves from
the trees, break off pieces of rock or crawl around picking up utterly
worthless shells."57 In a later chapter about a lower South Florida
trip, after a wearying exploration through jungle and swamp, Simpson
reiterated that:

Wherever I went I had been taken for a tramp or a desperate
man.... I tried to get a drink at a cistern, but a man in a very ugly
voice told me to go away and leave the water alone. He refused
to let me sleep on his floor, and didn't want to talk with me. I
started away but came back and asked if he took me for a tramp,
and he said I was either that or a bad man. I pulled out a gold
watch and chain and asked if bad men and tramps carried such
things, then I showed him a ten dollar bill and said, 'You still
think I am a bad lot, do you?' His severe scowl changed into a
smile and he said, '0 come in, I guess you are all right.'"

His fellow scientists and naturalists, those who had read his books
and articles, thought he was much more than "all right." In 1923, the
77-year-old Simpson was the recipient of a high honor of the botani-
cal world: the Meyer Medal. Marjory Stoneman Douglas, who was
present at the award ceremony, reported in The Miami Herald that
in the surroundings of his beautiful garden, Charles Torrey Simpson
received the award "in recognition of his life of devoted service to
tropical Florida and to the United States."58 Doctor Fairchild, an
earlier recipient of the medal, who made the presentation, stated that:

The Meyer Medal is given to you in recognition of your distin-
guished service in the field of foreign plant introduction. You

76 TEQUESTA

have enriched the state of Florida not only through the intro-
duction of a wide range of new plants, but also by the knowl-
edge you have gained and freely shared of the behavior in this
climate of hundreds of other plants....1 Ifeel, my dear Simpson,
that in giving this Meyer Medal to you today, I am merely do-
ing what I know Meyer would like to have done himself.59

Ms. Douglas reported, "When the medal was put in his hands, Pro-
fessor Simpson had tears in his eyes and he was shaking a little, quite
overcome. Lathrop [Barbour Lathrop, Fairchild's great benefactor
and the first recipient of the Meyer Medal] stepped up to shake
hands, proclaiming, 'I'm damn glad you've got it! You deserved it!'
and saved the situation with a shout of laughter."~
There were many other tributes honoring the Sage of Biscayne
Bay. In 1927, the University of Miami awarded him the honorary
doctorate in science degree, a first for the institution and for Simpson.
Through the years a great many shells and plants, such as the fan
palm Simpsonia microcarpa and the tropical tree snail Liguus
fasciatus simpsonii, were named for him. On June 3, 1930, two
hundred of Simpson's friends and admirers, among them members of
garden clubs and departments of parks and recreation, celebrated his
eighty-fourth birthday at the Sentinels. The Simpsons were presented
with a gift and there was a cake with eighty-four candles. Punch
was served from blocks of ice in which roses had been frozen. There
was an article about the party in the Tiskilwa, Illinois, newspaper -
for Simpson still had many friends in his hometown who had followed
his career with great interest. On April 1 of the following year, the
Simpson Park meeting house was dedicated, with two hundred people
in attendance.61
Theodore Spicer-Simpson, the sculptor and medalist, struck a medal-
lion with a profile portrait relief of Dr. Simpson. In a letter of thanks to
the artist, the Doctor wrote, "It makes me look dignified and gives
more of an air of power to my physiognomy than I possess but these
things are, no doubt, a sort of poetic licence [sic] which artists are
allowed to use."62 In Thelma Peters' Biscayne Country, there is a
picture of Simpson posing for a life-size portrait bust executed by
Elva Perrine, member of a pioneer South Florida family.63 At Simpson
Park today, one can see a large oil painting by local artist Henry
Salem Hubbell of Simpson receiving his honorary doctorate (the frame
was a gift from the doctor's tree class). The painting was unveiled

The Sage of Biscayne Bay 77

at a book tea at the park in 1942, held to add volumes to the Simpson
Park library.6 Also framed and on permanent display at the park is
a poem by Stephen Cochran Singleton entitled Charles Torrey
Simpson, In Memoriam that ends with the lines, "All... are richer far
today because this man... /Dwelt once among us and interpreted for
us/ The messages of rock and tree and flower."
Early in 1932, the year of his death, the 'Old Man's' last book,
Florida Wild Life, appeared. The president of the Macmillan Company
called upon Simpson and insisted upon its publication, an honor Simpson
said that he could not resist.65 It is to be hoped that in 1996, the year when
the City of Miami celebrates its one hundredth birthday, and the history
of the area will be under more than the usual scrutiny, Simpson's South
Florida books will again be in print, read and appreciated as they so
richly deserve.
At the end of the final chapter of Florida Wild Life, entitled "In
Memoriam," Simpson expresses for the last time his deeply-felt concern
for the future of wild life in words as appropriate to today as to that
era:

Looking back to the days when South Florida was a beautiful
wilderness filled with magnificent wild life and then contemplat-
ing the wreck of today is enough to sicken the heart of a lover
of nature, yes, even of any sensible person who has a true
valuation of the useful and beautiful. If things go on here as
they have done in the past few years this can only end in the
destruction of all that is lovely and of value that nature has
bestowed on us.... But let us not bring down the curtain in ut-
ter despair, let us not turn away without hope from this scene
of ruin and desolation. Within the last few years there has come
an awakening, a realization of the value of beauty for beauty's
sake, and intelligent people are beginning to ask if it is wise to
utterly destroy everything nature has so lavishly given us for
the sake of gain.6

In December 1932, at age eight-six, while at work at his desk
at the Sentinels, Dr. Simpson suffered a fatal heart attack. The
funeral was held in his garden. It is reported that at one point in the
service, violin music came from a distance, as if the wind in the trees
were bidding him good-bye. Hundreds of mourners were in atten-

78 TEQUESTA

dance, and there was a mile-long procession to Woodlawn Park
Cemetery in Miami for the burial ceremony. A tree, one of the
stoppers discovered by Simpson, was planted next to his grave, on a
plot deeded to the Garden Clubs of Miami by the Woodlawn Park
Cemetery Association.67 Today, more than sixty years later, that tree
remains next to his grave. Simpson willed his enormous shell collec-
tion and the part of his library devoted to that science to the Univer-
sity of Miami. The rest of his library of hundreds of books went in
part to the Flagler (later the Miami Public) Library; the remainder
can still be seen at the Chapman Field Plant Introduction Station.68
On February 2, 1933, The Florida Society of Natural History passed
a resolution honoring Simpson:

Whereas, in the death of Dr. Charles Torrey Simpson, honor-
ary president ... the Society has lost a distinguished member,
and Whereas his contributions in the fields of conchology,
botany, and horticulture and his books on natural history on
this unique section of the country have made him known to
scientist and layman alike, and Whereas, as one of the pio-
neers in the field of natural history in this southern part of
Florida he has endeared himself to its residents and acted as
interpreter of its natural charms, be it therefore resolved that
The Florida Society of Natural History, recognizing its great loss,
hereby places on record its indebtedness to this scientist and
nature lover and expresses its sorrow at the loss of this valued
member.9

One can only hope that the wish Simpson expressed in Florida
Wild Life, in tribute to his favorite palm trees, has somehow been
realized:

The royal is stately, it is an aristocrat, its outlines are sharp cut;
as it stands in its severe beauty it is one of the most striking,
even startling objects in the vegetable kingdom. The coconut
has infinite grace as well as majesty; it is distinctly emblematic
of the tropics. I hope when I die I may go to some place where
I can see the smooth, gray columns of royals, where I can gaze
on their splendid, black-green leaves as they are tossed and
shaken in the strong trade wind, where the wonderful leaflets

The Sage of Biscayne Bay 79

of the coconuts dance and shimmer in the moonlight as they
are gently moved by the soft, warm sea breeze.70

Members of the Historical Association of Southern Florida enjoy a
wide variety of benefits. These include free admission to the mu-
seum; subscriptions to three museum periodicals: Tequesta, South
Florida History Magazine and Currents; invitations to special events;
use of the Research Center; discounts on purchases at the museum
store; and discounts on educational and recreational programs.
Each membership category offers the benefits as outline above,
plus additional gifts and privileges for the higher levels of support.
Membership revenues primarily cover the cost of the benefits
provided, educational programs, special exhibitions and daily opera-
tions of the museum. The membership listing is made up of those
persons and organizations that have paid dues since November 1994;
those who joined after November 1, 1995, will be published in the
1996 Tequesta.

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